And You, My Brother
by Kitty Gets Loose
Summary: Sesshomaru encounters Inuyasha one moonless night and sees him in a rather new light. Disclaimer: I don't own the characters from Inuyasha.
1. Something familiar this way comes

Chapter I: _Something familiar this way comes_

Sesshomaru stood alone on the crest of a hill overlooking a sodden forest, a miserable patch of leaves and wood weighed down by a recent thunderstorm, and uninvitingly dark on this moonless night.

He could smell and hear them crashing through the forest – some monstrous but obviously mindless youkai, and that familiar someone, who was emanating a quite different scent from usual at this moment, thanks to a certain monthly inconvenience imposed on him by the waning of the lunar orb.

Sesshomaru's lips curled in a barely perceptible smirk as he imagined how poorly his half-brother must be faring against a beast intent on turning him into a meal, on the very night when he was no longer hanyou as he normally was, but fully, inadequately human.

On a whim, he decided that he would watch the fun and games.

The taiyoukai swooped into the forest and perched in a tree on the edge of a sorry excuse for a clearing within the woods. Leaping into trees was more Inuyasha's style, but for these purposes, it gave Sesshomaru a vantage point without exposing himself unnecessarily.

Within seconds of his lighting on his chosen branch, the two creatures he wished to be entertained by burst into the clearing. That open space was hardly big enough to contain the gigantic youkai, a massive length of slimy chitin, countless feeler-like legs, and, of course, the mandatory gaping mouth packed with mandibles, which now dived steeply in the direction of the little human figure that only just dodged the assault and darted back in among the trees. Moonless night or not, Sesshomaru's demon vision easily picked out every piece of the action.

Inuyasha, a streak of scarlet garb and streaming black hair, was quick even in his human state, and as resourceful as ever. The Tetsusaiga would not transform for him on this night, but it was still a sword, and Sesshomaru watched passively as he stuck it with a battle cry into the left eye of the youkai upon its next lunge at its intended snack.

Now half-blind but immeasurably more enraged, the youkai monster screamed as it launched its entire length at Inuyasha – and caught him with the very tip of its tail-end, sending him flying against a tree with a smack that Sesshomaru would probably have considered sickening had he been in Inuyasha's position.

Sesshomaru smelt the blood at once, the instant it spurted from his half-brother's skin, as it split open and scraped against the rough bark of the tree. More blood oozed to the surface as the beast struck again, this time succeeding in spearing Inuyasha with three of its numerous legs before the Tetsusaiga lopped them off to free him from the impalement. Yet more blood spilled when the monster crunched into his sword-arm shoulder with a mandible on the edge of its maw that just managed to catch his flesh as he attempted to dodge the attack.

Violet eyes flashing murder but body incapacitated by the battering he had sustained, Inuyasha emptied his lungs with a furious yell of pain and folded into a heap on the ground when the beast withdrew its mandible for a second in order to rear back and lash in again for a better grip.

It was what Sesshomaru had come to see, but abruptly, for some reason he did not now have time to examine, it no longer pleased him to see his half-brother beaten to a pulp by that ugly youkai, though it had given him pleasure often enough in the past to carry out the thrashing himself.

Just as the beast slithered into what would almost certainly have been its final strike, Sesshomaru flew at it in a blinding streak of white light, sword drawn, and with a casual ease that was almost insulting to the massive struggle Inuyasha had just engaged in, waved the Bakusaiga and lopped off the monster's head, then landed lightly on his feet with his back to Inuyasha, who remained prone on the grass.

When the beast's death throes finally ceased, and the forest no longer shook from the thrashing of its absurdly long body, Sesshomaru's ears immediately picked up the sounds of Inuyasha trying to lift himself out of the mud behind him.

He turned his head fractionally so that he could just see the figure on the ground, whose breath came in rasps as he opened his mouth to speak.

"Why, Sesshomaru, I had no idea how much you loved me," Inuyasha said, throwing back at his brother the very same sardonic words Sesshomaru had tossed at him many moons ago, in a rather different fight involving a little girl in danger and an adolescent boy with nothing more than a death wish.

His words came in a breathless rush, accompanied by a short and bitter laugh, heavily laced with irony and the physical pain of coming off worse against an enormous creature that had more legs than any living thing strictly required, and which had tried to make supper of him.

Then Inuyasha's head drooped and he sank back into the mud. Sesshomaru could not immediately detect from where he stood if he had completely lost consciousness or simply collapsed from exhaustion.

When he did not move again, apart from the shallow breaths that stirred his bloodied suikan in a minuscule rhythm of rising and falling, Sesshomaru decided in favour of the former option.

He sheathed the Bakusaiga and turned away. No point wasting any more time in this kami-forsaken forest now that the hideous thing was headless and the temporarily human hanyou was sprawled in the mud, as good as dead to the world for hours to come.

It was what Sesshomaru had always done – turn on his heel and walk away from Inuyasha after a battle against a common enemy – but something felt different now, and he stopped in his tracks.

For a fraction of a moment he wondered what the difference was, then he knew. After every fight that Sesshomaru had been around to witness in recent years, Inuyasha had unfailingly had his pack of friends rushing up to him, shouting his name and throwing themselves to the ground beside him, first fearing for his life, then tending to his injuries once they had ascertained that he was still breathing and not mortally wounded.

They were gone, every one of them.

The underdressed miko back to wherever she had come from; the monk and slayer starting life together and rebuilding her village from scratch; the kitsune off on a visit with the old village miko to the newlyweds; and the fire cat on a mission with the slayer's resurrected brother, now freed from the bond that had once chained him to their late, loathed, multi-limbed enemy Naraku – what was it with vile demons and their countless spare appendages?

And why, Sesshomaru asked himself, did he know so much about the developments in the lives of his half-brother's comrades?

However he had come by all that useless knowledge, Sesshomaru was certain of this: Inuyasha was alone. And utterly, helplessly human.

Damn himself, but he could not just leave him lying there, unconscious, soaked from head to bare toe in his own blood.

Well, he could, but he wouldn't. Not this time.

Sesshomaru turned around and walked back to Inuyasha's fallen form. He carefully slid the Tetsusaiga's scabbard over the blade, whose hilt Inuyasha still grasped, and secured the sword to his half-brother's sash.

Now, to see to Inuyasha. Permitting himself a moment's mental indulgence, he thought how useful it was to have both his forelimbs again. In the same moment, he silently cursed at how all that blood and mud was going to completely ruin his clothes, and contemplated for an instant the feasibility of simply collaring him by his suikan and hauling him into the air.

But no, if he was going to do it at all, he would do it properly, so he bent down and scooped Inuyasha into his arms.

This brat of a hanyou brother had been an almighty pain in the butt for a couple of centuries now, but bloody hell – Sesshomaru suddenly realised as he rose to his feet and found that the bundle in his arms proved to weigh somewhat less than he had expected, and to feel rather smaller than he looked – he was only a child.

* * *

Disclaimer: I don't own Inuyasha, and make no money or profit from writing this fanfic; Rumiko Takahashi has all the rights to the original manga and anime and the characters in them.


	2. What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?

Chapter II: _What, shall I stab him as he sleeps?_

Sesshomaru should logically have flown to the spot where he had left his kappa follower Jaken and dragon Ah-Un to dump Inuyasha there until his hanyou powers returned with the daylight and assisted his healing.

But there wasn't much that was logical about his carrying his half-brother like a pup away from the scene of the carnage in the woods, so he continued along that illogical path by bearing him to a quiet clearing by a spring in a larger forest, an area he frequented and knew to be deserted because every sentient creature that might have traipsed through it took a detour once it detected his taiyoukai scent and the waves of his power which lingered in that territory even in his absence.

He deposited Inuyasha's unconscious form on the grass beside the spring and contemplated the bloodied figure reeking with mud and grime and sweat. Observing no sign of returning consciousness, and with a long night still ahead of them, Sesshomaru turned to the spring-fed pool and began to see to the matter of getting the filth out of his white vestments and his trailing mokomoko mane, against which Inuyasha's head had rested when he held him in his arms.

He unfastened his breastplate, dropped it to the ground along with the sash that secured his armour to his waist, and slipped his feet elegantly from his boots, but otherwise waded fully clothed into the pool. He would let the water do its work and ease the stubborn stains out with his fingers where necessary – he would be damned if he was going to stoop half-naked by the water scrubbing at clothing bunched in his hands as if he was some laundry boy.

Although neither cold nor heat to a certain degree bothered his taiyoukai physique, warmth was certainly more pleasant than either extreme of temperature, and Sesshomaru frequented this spring because its waters were warm enough to put him in a neutral frame of mind. Already, his nose told him that the bubbling movements of the water were clearing most of the grime from the silk and fur, and light strokes from his fingers did the rest.

When he was satisfied that the dirt and blood were gone, he emerged from the water, dripping wet from his silver hair to the mokomoko which draped about his right shoulder like an immense, very waterlogged fur boa, to the legs of his white hakama, which usually billowed but now clung to his skin, deflated.

He shook the water out of his hair and fur like the dog he really was, then sat down on a rock a few feet from where Inuyasha lay, to wait for the considerable heat his body was capable of generating to dry out the rest of him.

As he sat there, he contemplated his brother's form again, and sniffed the air once more to take in the offensive odours plastering Inuyasha's body.

He would have left him to reek until he awoke to clean himself up, had Inuyasha not twitched in a moment of semi-consciousness, and turned onto his side to curl into a foetal position with a tiny whimper that Sesshomaru's ears only just caught.

Something about that movement triggered a memory of Rin curling up for greater warmth in the cold nights against Ah-Un's flank. Yes, Rin, the little girl he had left for her own good with humans who would care for her and teach her things a female child growing rapidly into puberty ought to learn from her own kind and her own sex, and not from an all-male trio of two mismatched demons and a twin-headed dragon.

She was for all intents and purposes a daughter to him, but he had no mate to offer her as a mother, so he had done what he believed was best for her. Sesshomaru missed the child and visited her regularly, but seeing her occasionally was never the same as having her run circles round him as she drove Jaken to distraction and kept Ah-Un amused.

Perhaps, he thought, when she was older and wouldn't have to come to him – or worse, Jaken – to ask awkward questions about her changing body, or the human female menstrual cycle that would undoubtedly be starting in her any time now, or the nature of the peculiar interest that human (and some youkai) males would soon start taking in her, she could rejoin them and be a proper child of his once more.

Then again, maybe not. Who was he to keep her from falling in love and starting a family – a proper family, not this motley band of assorted dysfunctional demons – just so that she could be his daughter all day, every day? As a father, he ought to let her create her own life and her own line, and not keep her with him until she had no one else in all the world to love but himself (or infinitely worse, Jaken). He would not allow that, for she was in spirit purely his daughter; nothing in him would permit that to change between them. And he most certainly would not leave her to that irritating kappa who, come to think of it, behaved more like a petulant grandfather to the girl than a babysitter.

Now, as he gazed upon the curled-up figure of Inuyasha on the grass, he considered the ironic truth that while a human child who was no blood relation of his felt so perfectly like his own daughter, this creature before him who was actually his half-sibling had never seemed like a brother to him. Their shared blood aroused no fraternal affection in his heart while Rin's alien blood had never impeded his paternal instincts.

Nonetheless, the lad's movements had brought Rin to mind. Perhaps that was what prompted Sesshomaru to rise to his feet and cross over to where he lay, to check on him. He was still breathing normally, still unconscious, and terribly filthy. That bothered Sesshomaru now, although it had not troubled him earlier apart from the annoyance of knowing that it would mess up his own garments.

He bent down to peel open the left lapel of his brother's fire-rat suikan and the layers below it, and saw that portions of the youkai's lopped-off legs were still stuck in his chest. Sesshomaru extracted them and tossed them aside, away from the pool. The puncture wounds bled afresh, and he instinctively took action to stem the flow.

He undid the fastenings at Inuyasha's waist and chest, parted the red suikan and the white nagajuban under it, and found a thin layer of hadajuban beneath that. Sesshomaru eased Inuyasha's left arm out of its two upper sleeve layers, then took hold of the hadajuban sleeve and tore it off. He was attempting to be considerate about Inuyasha's clothing, and the hanyou had better not complain later about having his undergarments ripped apart. Sesshomaru could more conveniently have seized a sleeve-length of fire rat – but he wasn't about to be that evil, at least for now.

He rent the piece of white fabric in two and pressed one half firmly against the puncture wounds to staunch the blood. Then he turned to the pool and dipped the other half of the torn-off cloth into the water, saturating it before wringing it out and stepping back to Inuyasha's side.

He began sponging the grime off his face and neck. The cloth quickly grew stained with dirt, so he turned again to the pool to rinse out the fabric before resuming his task, this time wiping more blood, half-dried sweat, youkai slime and mud off Inuyasha's shoulders and chest, which he exposed as he went along. The Tetsusaiga was getting in the way, so he freed the sheath from its tie and laid the sword down on the grass, beside his brother's left leg.

Trying not to recontaminate his own garments, he lifted Inuyasha into a sitting position so that he could peel the clothes entirely off his torso, then turned him over and cleaned the filth off his back as well, picking out splinters of tree bark along the way, before laying him back down.

He briefly considered completing the job by undoing the lad's hakama and sponging down the rest of him, but quickly opted to leave things as they were. While very little in this world could faze Sesshomaru, even he conceded that it would most definitely be awkward if Inuyasha should open his eyes in time to catch him in the process of removing his trousers.

That decision left Sesshomaru standing over Inuyasha with a bundle of his half-brother's absolutely grubby upper garments clutched in his left hand, and a shredded half-sleeve of hadajuban in his right.

Sesshomaru discarded the half-sleeve, then, with what was almost – for him – a sigh of resignation, he stepped over to the pool and did what he had earlier been so set against doing for himself: he stooped by the water and scrubbed the grime out of Inuyasha's clothes as if he was a laundry boy.


	3. Heart upon my sleeve

Chapter III: _Heart upon my sleeve_

The sky was still pitch black and the sun a good way from rising, when Inuyasha stirred with something more than mere semi-consciousness, and groaned as the stiffness from his battered body registered with his brain.

"What the hell?" he muttered hoarsely, as he opened his eyes at last to find himself bare-bodied in the darkness, but with his fire-rat suikan draped over him like a blanket. The white under-layers of his clothing hung, damp, from a low branch nearby, their outlines only just visible to mortal eyes on this night of the new moon.

Sesshomaru eyed him from the rock he sat on, watching the wheels turn in his half-brother's head as he tried to fit the pieces together. He had not bothered to wash the suikan, as it was spun from youkai fur and had the ability to repair and clean itself to a certain extent, so he had covered Inuyasha with it, to shield that frail human body from the cold.

His own clothes had dried on him some time ago, and their brilliant whiteness glowed softly in the dark along with the pallor of his fur and the sweep of his silver hair, so that he was the next thing Inuyasha's human eyes spotted.

The brothers had maintained a distant peace since Naraku's destruction several months ago, and had not crossed weapons in a fair while, but disorientation and the old instincts took sway, and Inuyasha unthinkingly groped for his sword, found it beside him, and grasped the hilt.

"Sesshomaru?" he growled, squinting at the pale figure a stone's throw away as he staggered to his feet. "What's going on? What the hell did you do to me?"

Sesshomaru regarded him impassively in complete silence, not moving a hair.

"Hey, I'm talking to you!" Inuyasha yelled, shifting into a more stable stance. "'You going deaf in your old age or something?"

Sesshomaru held three more seconds of silence before asking coldly in response: "What do you suppose I did to you?"

"I'm asking you, asshole! Did _you_ undress me? What's the big idea?"

"It was necessary in order to clean you up. The stench was intolerable."

Inuyasha drew breath to make a retort, but his brain suddenly caught up with his mouth, and he shut his trap again as he twigged that he did in fact seem unharmed apart from what the beast had done to him earlier, still had his sword in his possession, and was actually quite clean for someone who had been rolling about in mud and monster drool not two hours ago.

He relaxed his grip on the Tetsusaiga's hilt and asked with a mix of suspicion and curiosity: "So what'd you do? Throw me in that pool?"

Sesshomaru did not condescend to reply.

Being unable to see his brother's features as clearly as his brother could see his should have given Inuyasha further cause for feeling unnerved, but as his fuzzy-headedness gradually cleared, he grew calmer, for his surroundings – and his companion – radiated no threatening vibes (not that he could be absolutely certain until his hanyou senses returned to him), but instead stilled him with an unfamiliar sense of security.

Deciding that he wasn't about to get an answer from Sesshomaru any time soon, but reassured by that strange feeling that he wasn't about to get stabbed in the back either, Inuyasha huffed and stalked over to the water, following the sound of the bubbling spring.

He squatted at the pool's edge and splashed the warm water onto his face and over his hair, although there wasn't much left to clean off, for Sesshomaru had done a good job. But from the waist down, he still felt grimy and sticky, and in need of a thorough soak.

"Any monster eels in there or anything else I should know about before I jump in?" he asked sardonically, throwing the question over his shoulder at the pale figure still on the rock under a tree.

"No," came the short reply.

"Okay, don't mind me then."

Inuyasha unabashedly stripped off the remainder of his clothing and waded into the water, taking his white, pyjama-like, lower undergarments with him to wash them. The water was soothing, but his wounds stung, especially the puncture marks where he remembered that the youkai had stabbed him with its spindly legs. He was clear-headed enough by now to realise that someone – obviously Sesshomaru – had thoroughly cleaned out the hairy bits of leg which he knew had been left jammed in his flesh after he had hacked the rest of them off.

Now, _that_ was freaky. Saving his ass from an ugly beast was one thing – but tenderly cleaning him up? Seriously, that was weird.

Inuyasha suddenly felt self-conscious about standing naked in a spring pool not twenty feet from where Sesshomaru sat, knowing that the taiyoukai could see him as clear as day while he himself, damn his human vision, couldn't even tell if Sesshomaru's head was turned this way or not.

So what if he was completely submerged in the water from his chest down? For all he knew, Sesshomaru could see right through deep pools in the dark as well.

He turned his back to his half-brother and hastily scrubbed roughly at the hakama underlayers in his hands, although he could barely see what he was doing and couldn't tell if he was getting any spots out or not.

He then tied the trouser legs about his waist to keep the garments from floating away, and soaked himself some more to ease the kinks out of his sore muscles. Ouch, ouch, and ouch again. He couldn't wait for the sunrise so that his hanyou powers would help knit everything back together quick – and so that he could take a good look at Sesshomaru to see if he could spot any clues in his face about what had gone on while he'd been knocked out.

Who was he kidding? No amount of staring at Sesshomaru's face had ever given him any clues as to what was going on behind that impassive mask, and that probably hadn't changed overnight.

Inuyasha thought he would be quite content to stay right there for the rest of the night, steeped in that pool like one of those meaty ribs Kaede occasionally simmered in her cooking pot to make soup. Not because he really needed the warmth of the spring much longer – he felt a lot better already – but because, well, because he felt nervous about coming back out of the water in front of Sesshomaru.

He must have stood there for several more minutes after that self-awareness dawned on him, when Sesshomaru's voice glided through the darkness like a warm knife through those slabs of butter Kagome had sometimes brought over to them through the well.

"Are you attempting to cook yourself into soup?" he heard him say, with a certain tone in his voice that – if he hadn't known better – almost sounded like amusement.

Inuyasha flushed as he wondered if he had read his mind when he had thought of Kaede's broths. He hoped, on all the powers that were in the universe, that the water was concealing the scent of his unease from his brother's sensitive nose.

"Wh-what?" was all he managed to stammer out, to cover up his discomfort.

"If you stay in there much longer, you'll probably dissolve."

_What?_ So he really was having a laugh at his expense? Feeling ridiculous for being as nervous as he was, Inuyasha gathered courage from his growing annoyance with himself and with the taiyoukai and waded out of the pool, hoping that Sesshomaru was well-bred enough to avert his eyes.

On the shore, he hastily pulled on his fire-rat hakama, the only dry thing he had within reach, and knotted its sash about his waist more tightly than was absolutely necessary.

"Why so shy all of a sudden?" the voice came at him evenly again. "You had no hesitation about disrobing in front of me earlier."

Oh, kami, had he not averted his eyes after all?

"What the hell is wrong with you, Sesshomaru?" Inuyasha flared up. He hoped his display of anger masked the flaming of his cheeks.

And that thought really made him mad now, for indeed, what was he so abashed about? Surely there was nothing here Sesshomaru hadn't seen before… was there?

The realisation broke on Inuyasha anew that he had so many gaps in his knowledge about his past, so many things he had been far too young to know about what his half-brother knew about him. Perhaps he had seen him naked as the day he was born when he was a child. Perhaps. Perhaps not. He didn't know, and wasn't about to ask.

He stomped back to where he had left his suikan and sword, and sat down on the grass in a pique.

The silence lasted all of five minutes before Inuyasha, feeling a prickling sensation on the back of his neck, hissed out in distinctly staccato syllables: "Stop. Staring. At. Me."

To his considerable alarm, Sesshomaru's reaction to that order was to rise to his feet and walk slowly over to him. Inuyasha froze in panic as the booted feet padded across the grass, the pale figure in them coming to a stop before him, towering over him.

Should he scramble away and run for it? Grab the Tetsusaiga and stick it in Sesshomaru's groin? Kick him? What?

While he dithered in mental and emotional disorder, the taiyoukai leaned down and reached a pale hand towards the side of his head. He should have reacted – in fact, he _always_ overreacted to Sesshomaru – but tonight, he felt bolted to the spot where he sat, immobile and incapable of defending himself.

The long, claw-tipped fingers stirred the hair that fell against his cheek, then lightly pressed against his scalp and withdrew again with a light tug on the lock beside his ear.

As he did all that in one calm movement, he said to Inuyasha: "You have a water bug in your hair."

Oh.

Inuyasha's racing heart steadied itself to wind down its furious pace as Sesshomaru flicked the bug between his fingers back in the direction of the pool, turned away and resumed his almost meditative position on the rock.

Inuyasha spoke not another word for the rest of the night, and did not even turn his head when Sesshomaru, at some point, moved from his rock to put on his armour and sash before taking his seat once more.

Nothing else happened after that, and they sat in their respective spots, in silence, until the dawn broke.

As he felt the welcome transformation come upon him – fangs extending in his mouth, hanyou claws growing back out from human nails, mane of hair filling out with silver, muscles gathering greater strength and definition – he also felt his brother's eyes on him, watching the change, and scented on the air Sesshomaru's interest in what he was witnessing.

When the transformation was complete, Inuyasha stood up and turned to face his brother, who was regarding him with unreadable golden eyes and a mien that gave nothing away.

"What are you looking at?" he growled, but with less aggressiveness than he would have liked.

He did not really expect a reply, but to his surprise, he got one: "You."

Then Sesshomaru got up and walked away.

_What was all that about?_ Inuyasha wondered as he himself rose to snatch his nagajuban and hadajuban off the branch where they had hung all night to dry. _Was he just sitting around waiting for my transformation? Just to see it up close? Or was he… no… surely he couldn't have been… um… watching over me until I was in hanyou form again and able to look after myself?_

Surely not.

But the possibility of it lingered, and Inuyasha felt almost – almost – warm and fuzzy towards the demon until his fingers reached for the left sleeve of his hadajuban and found it ripped right off.

Instantly, he flared up again, yelling at the figure of Sesshomaru rapidly growing smaller in the distance: "Hey! What'd you do to my undershirt, you jerk?"

No response, of course. Of course.

Then another thought occurred to Inuyasha as he looked around him and sniffed the air, only to find his surroundings completely unfamiliar.

"And where the hell am I, anyway?" he hollered.

No response. Of course.

Inuyasha grabbed the rest of his clothes and his sword and scrambled after Sesshomaru.


	4. One may smile, and smile, and be a demon

Chapter IV: _One may smile, and smile, and be a demon_

Two days after the night of the new moon, Sesshomaru smiled to himself three times in the course of the afternoon, for no obvious reason that Jaken could discern.

It made Jaken very, very nervous. Lord Sesshomaru did not smile for nothing. Usually, his smiles preceded death. A sinister stretching of those grim lips, then splat, squish and sizzle, and some unfortunate creature's existence would be terminated, often with nothing remaining of it but a puddle of mush.

As Lord Sesshomaru did not appear to be headed in any particular direction that Jaken was able to work out, but seemed merely to be wandering along meandering forest paths, the kappa began to fear that those smiles were a herald of his own demise.

After all, no one else was around but himself and Ah-Un, and Lord Sesshomaru surely held nothing against the dragon… so… so it must be that he, Jaken, had done something horribly wrong, unawares… and Lord Sesshomaru was smiling because he was relishing the thought of how he would torture Jaken until he was no more than… a puddle of mush.

Jaken's wrinkled little knees began to knock together as he walked beside Ah-Un, and he had to use every ounce of what limited self-control he possessed not to collapse into a heap from the fear that overwhelmed him. By the time he was obliged to use the staff of two heads as a walking stick in order to hold himself upright, he could no longer endure the misery.

He broke down. The little kappa flung himself to the ground at Sesshomaru's feet and wailed into the dirt: "Spare me, Sesshomaru-sama! I don't know what I have done but please don't kill me for it! Plee-ease!"

The boots stopped before his face, and Jaken heard Sesshomaru say in a stern voice, after a horribly long silence: "What are you raving about, Jaken? What have you done that I ought to kill you for?"

The kappa raised his head and could have sworn that Lord Sesshomaru's countenance bore traces of an astonished expression, shaded by the annoyance of having had his private thoughts interrupted. But the impression was fleeting, and the emotionless screen came down over that arrogant face again before Jaken could be certain that he had seen anything different on it.

"Th-that w-was what I was hoping you would tell me, my lord…?" Jaken's voice trailed off into a squeak.

This time, he _did_ see a change in Sesshomaru's face. The taiyoukai was looking at him as if he, Jaken, had gone mad, mad beyond redemption.

Then… then it wasn't about him…? But… if he hadn't done anything wrong, what was Lord Sesshomaru smiling about? Jaken felt a strangled cry rising in his crepey throat as he wondered if it was worth all this – all this _stress_, all this _grief_ – to be Lord Sesshomaru's follower. Surely tripping all around the country after this impossible taiyoukai was shortening his life by a few hundred years?

He finally collected himself, however, and determined that quitting now would do him little good. He thought: _No, I've come this far. I can go on._

So he opened his mouth to thank his lord Sesshomaru for sparing him for whatever he did not know he might have done, only to find that the taiyoukai and Ah-Un were already far up the path, about to turn out of sight as the trail curved to the left.

Jaken panicked, picked himself up and tripped after them, crying out in his high-pitched, quavering voice: "W-wait for me, Sesshomaru-sama!"

.

.

Sesshomaru had not been conscious of the fact that he had been smiling to himself. It only occurred to him that he must have done so after Jaken's extraordinary outburst snapped him back to the present from the recent past.

Well, Jaken could rest easy for now – Sesshomaru's thoughts had not been on the kappa. Far from it.

His first smile had been prompted by the memory from two days ago, of Inuyasha scampering after him, pulling on his clothes as he leaped and ran, catching up to him and demanding to know where the devil they were, all swirling silver hair and flashing golden eyes which widened in shock as Sesshomaru seized him round the waist and bore him high into the air. Cue a slew of loud curses and empty threats; cue fuzzy ears twitching into overdrive and amber-flecked peepers darting frantically between Sesshomaru's face above him and the ground much, much too far below; cue a pair of strong hands gripping Sesshomaru's breastplate for dear life over long miles of forested country. Then the descent and the palpable relief as he was deposited in a spot he knew very well – by the Go-shinboku tree – stunned speechless as his brother disappeared without another word to him.

His second smile grew from the recollection of events on that same day, when he had gone to the slayers' village to visit Rin after leaving Inuyasha. The old miko Kaede had taken the girl there to visit the newlywed monk and female slayer, and Rin was certainly not expecting him to make an appearance. Her cry of delight, "Sesshomaru-sama!"; the rapturous yet respectful greeting typical of her character; the smile that was pure sunshine lighting up her little face; her pleasure at his gift to her of a rare plant he had spotted on the way to the village – these scenes replaying in his mind brought a sensation of warmth to his heart, the heart that had been so cold until this child came into his life. Her momentary sadness when it was time for him to go had been quickly succeeded by another cheerful smile when he gave her his word that he would see her again soon, and he left her safe and well in the company of his brother's pack, with whom he exchanged formal nods before departing. Relations between them and himself were still far from warm, but were at least a vast improvement from the days when they would all seize their weapons at sight of him, and he did not care if they lived or died.

The third thing that raised a smile was the picture Inuyasha's face had made in the night when he had panicked at his approach to de-bug his hair – startled violet-grey eyes as round as soup bowls, lips parted in alarm, colour draining from his cheeks. Priceless.

.

.

Now as Sesshomaru wandered, lost in those thoughts, with Jaken puffing and panting after him, the smiles were followed by a growing soberness as he dragged to the surface for better examination the impulse he had felt when his fingers touched Inuyasha's hair that night.

Odd, but he had wanted to let his hand linger, to let his fingers hug the curve of his scalp and for his palm to cup his cheekbone, to say without words: "You have nothing to fear from me now."

Except, of course, that Inuyasha might well fear affection from Sesshomaru as much as he might have feared the threat to his life he had once posed. After all, it had been mere months since that reanimated corpse of a miko had died – hopefully for good this time – and the other miko, the perpetually half-naked one, had vanished – apparently never to return.

He knew that losing both girls had wounded Inuyasha profoundly, although he hid it better as time passed. And he understood that his brother's emotional turmoil hardly required further stirring from him, Sesshomaru, of all beings. But there it was nonetheless – that compelling instinct he had had to fight that night, which indeed he was still fighting.

He concluded that he had grown soft, and softening brought all sorts of trouble.

His old heartlessness had cracked under one stealing moment after another: his well-disguised panic each time Rin had been kidnapped (he hadn't been a very effective guardian, had he?); his compassion for Kagura, which had led him to be there for her as she died and to attack Moryomaru with such wrath that Tokijin had snapped in two when the monster had mocked the wind-demoness' sacrifice; his unconcealed distress when Rin had died that second time (he really hadn't been an effective protector!) and Tenseiga had been unable to re-revive her, necessitating his mother's help; the burden of his father's shadow lifting from his soul when he learnt that what he had within himself was greater than what he would have had if he'd hankered on after the Inu no Taisho's legacy – and that his father would have been proud to see him learn that lesson at last.

And now Inuyasha, with his brash personality shielding raw anguish, was starting to get to him too, in ways he was not yet ready to name to himself.

Yes, he was definitely getting soft. And yet, he would not now trade this new strength of heart for any amount of his former heartlessness. Kagura had taught him that much in those final moments of her life: it was far more honourable to die, wholehearted and vulnerable, for doing the right thing, than to exist meaninglessly – heartlessly.

Sesshomaru stopped at a fork in the road, realising that he had been walking all afternoon with no objective other than to think, and that he did not know where to go next. That, he decided, was the chief drawback of killing off all of one's major enemies – one had so little of great import left to do.

As he stood there, Jaken came puffing full-tilt into the back of his left boot, and he heard the kappa gulp as he realised what he had done. Sesshomaru set his features back into their usual expressionless lines and glared coldly down at Jaken just so that he could see the kappa back away in horror at his faux pas.

_Some_ things were worth keeping as they were, for their sheer entertainment value.


	5. Like Patience on a monument

Chapter V: _Like Patience on a monument, smiling at grief_

Inuyasha sat cross-legged on the floor of the Bone Eater's well that had once been the link between Kagome's time and his. The dirt was now unyielding beneath him whereas it had once unfailingly dissolved in a burst of light, expanding into a passage through which he and Kagome would free-fall before its solid walls reassembled about them as they emerged into her time, or his, depending on which way they travelled.

It had been a good while since he had jumped in just to sit at the bottom, staring alternately up at the square patch of sky above or the rough walls before him. It was not that he didn't want to do this more often – he would have sat right here every day and night of these past months, if he could have – but his friends had worried endlessly about him, and he did not want to waste breath or tax his brain in arguments with them.

He thought back to the weeks after Kagome had made that last unselfish wish on the Shikon no Tama, and he had simply been swept back into his world and she left in hers, leaving behind them a portal that no longer worked and a half-demon whose heart felt it would shatter into as many pieces as the Shikon jewel had once been.

He had leapt into the well every day, several times a day, hoping against hope that maybe this time – no, _this time_ – it would work. He had to get to her. He couldn't just let her go like that. He had to try, and keep trying, over and over again.

Eventually, he had taken to sitting inside the well. It made him feel better to think that perhaps Kagome was doing the very same in her own time, and they were side by side now in the very same spot, only half a millennium apart, and he was glad for her sake that in her world, she had the wellhouse to keep her dry and safe.

As the days passed and he remained there, all his friends – Miroku, Sango, Shippo, Kaede, even Hachi and Myoga – had come by turns and together to keep him company, to try and talk him into looking after himself better, to shelter him when it rained, and bring him food and water. Kirara would snuggle in his lap when she was not away with Kohaku, little Rin who was now living with Kaede would tag along with the miko to give him flowers, and once, old Totosai had come by to lament that Tetsusaiga deserved a better fate than to grow rusty lying down there in all that mud.

It had gone on like that for weeks, until one particularly stormy afternoon, Shippo had flung the food he had brought for him upon his head and yelled at him with tears filling his enormous green eyes.

"Inuyasha! Stop it! Stop doing this!" the kitsune had cried at him from the mouth of the well, where he had perched his little body on the wooden casing. "How long are you going to just sit there like that? I miss Kagome too – I miss her _so much_ – but I can't stand to think how she would feel if she knew you were torturing yourself like this. Inuyasha, please come out and come back to us – we need you too, you know?"

He had been able to scent the child-fox's scalding tears in the air, mingling with the raindrops that fell through the well shaft, splattering into the dirt that wouldn't yield for them, for him, for Kagome.

Almost immediately repenting of his outburst, Shippo had jumped into the well to throw his tiny arms round Inuyasha's neck, saying he was sorry, and to confess that he too would be sitting here like this if he had ever had the power to travel through the portal.

"I know you'll sense it even from miles away if the portal opens again, Inuyasha," Shippo had mumbled, his voice muffled by the half-demon's thick mane of hair, in which he had buried his face. "You'll feel it, I know you will. And if Kagome comes back, you'll know it too – you'll sense her presence, from wherever you are. You _will_."

The kitsune's emotions had moved Inuyasha, and as he tried to comfort the child, he began to accept the necessity of getting on with life for the sake of his friends, even then knowing that he would still sneak back out to the well once in a while when everyone stopped worrying so much about him. The fact that he was actually consoling Shippo instead of punching his bushy little head into a crop of lumps as he usually did whenever the kitsune upset him was insight enough for Inuyasha that he really was a mess, and that he did need his friends.

So he had pulled himself together and returned to the village, to the warmth of Kaede's hut and his circle of companions. In the weeks that followed, they had celebrated Miroku's and Sango's wedding, reinforced the spells and barriers around the village that would keep out the odd rampaging demon, and just got on with everyday life.

But in the deep of night, or when he had a legitimate reason to be away from the village, Inuyasha would return to the well, sitting with his back to the wooden casing, or leaning over the timber to stare into its depths, willing Kagome's face to appear, and for her cheerful voice to ring out that she needed help climbing out of there.

That was how he had come to be alone and attacked by that beastly youkai on the night of the new moon three days ago. When Kaede had earlier announced her intention to visit Miroku and Sango at the slayers' village and stay for a few days, he had declined to go, saying he could see the couple by himself later instead of making such a crowd with her and Rin and Shippo.

He had seized the opportunity to spend those days at the well without being nagged by anyone – after all, the other villagers knew better than to try and talk a hot-tempered half-demon out of anything. And on the night of the new moon, he had still been there, alone and vulnerable instead of returning before dusk to the safety of the village proper as he should have in his state, full of the scent of humanity and isolation that must have called like a dinner bell to that stupid youkai.

Not wanting to draw the monster back to the village with him, he had taken off in the opposite direction, through the deepest woods, and completely run out of breath and strength by the time the beast got in its first hit. Inuyasha was honest enough to know that he had been an idiot to have put himself in that position in the first place, and that he would undoubtedly have been youkai food if Sesshomaru hadn't swooped in.

Now, back inside the well, he fingered the spot on his shoulder into which the creature had sunk its mandible. In the moments after Sesshomaru had killed the beast, Inuyasha had been more concerned about the bits of leg stuck in his chest, but it occurred to him at this point that the mandible had perhaps posed a bigger threat. The saliva of that class of youkai sometimes contained substances that had a sedative effect, so that prey could be rendered less troublesome.

That, and not the injuries he had sustained, must have been the main reason he had been unconscious right through Sesshomaru's… erm… ministrations, for want of a better word.

The wounds were completely healed, not a single mark remaining thanks to his hanyou strength, and only a mild numbness lingered under the spot where he had been bitten. Even that was fading fast, but it was a reminder of his stupidity – and of Sesshomaru's protection.

He had nothing to fear tonight, now that he possessed his usual abilities and strength. With his half-demon vibes, most moronic beasts would think twice – if they could think at all – before coming for him. If they were still dumb enough to, well, he could take them on, no problem.

Fingering the dirt of the well floor once more and finding it as impassable as it had been five minutes previously, Inuyasha sighed and leaped out of the well into the starlit night. He leaned over one side of the wooden casing and stared down into the place he had just occupied, again willing Kagome to come back.

He should have loved her better. He should never have given her cause to feel that she was only a stopgap for the times he could not be with Kikyo. What a fool he had been. Kagome had represented life for him whereas Kikyo had symbolised death; Kagome had meant hope and happiness while the reanimated Kikyo had pointed him only towards pain and hellfire; even at the end, when Kikyo had passed on at last in peace, he had known that although he had truly loved her, they could never have built an untarnished future together, not when their togetherness meant excising half of what made him Inuyasha.

Kagome had never wanted him to be anything other than fully himself, even though she had always been perfectly aware from the start that she would grow old and die long before he even began to show signs of age.

And yet, she had loved him with a purity of heart he could never begin to deserve.

"Kagome," he whispered into the well. "I'm so sorry, Kagome. I should have told you how much I loved you. Can you hear me over there?"

What if the well never reopened? What if she was never able to come back, and he could never go to her? Could he live on for the next five hundred years, waiting for her to be born in the future? Could he wait and watch from the shadows five hundred years from now, until she turned fifteen and fell into the well? Could he wait and watch and yearn some more for months and months while she travelled back and forth, until the well closed for the final time and he could run to her at last, to tell her that he was hers, body and soul? Would she accept an older version of him, or would she weep for the young hanyou she had just left behind in the past? Would he even live that long? What was a hanyou's lifespan, anyway? He had no idea – he didn't exactly have a plethora of older, wiser half-demons to check with.

He then wondered what it would mean if that plan came to pass: would it mean that while his five-hundred-years-from-now self would be reuniting with Kagome, his old self would be back here, still pining for her? It boggled the mind, and started his temples throbbing.

He shook his head to clear it from the tangled web it had been weaving. Perhaps he could think better if he jumped back in. In and out, in and out, like in those first few weeks. He might just leap back in and refuse to ever re-emerge. But no, if he was going to keep himself alive for the next five hundred years, he had better stay in good shape, and that meant no more sitting for days on end inside damp holes deep in the ground.

Then again, what would it hurt to check one more time, _just one more time_, if the portal would reopen? His hands gripped the timber casing, and he readied himself to leap back into the well, when a familiar wash of power and vibes and scent broke around him like a wave sweeping over a stone, and a firm, cool voice reached his ears from the darkness behind him, saying: "Inuyasha. Enough."

Inuyasha gripped the wood a little harder, his claws almost digging into the casing, wanting to ignore that presence and jump into the well anyway in defiance of that order.

He decided to go for it. So he bunched his muscles to jump, but a strong hand grasped his shoulder and forced him to stay right where he was.

The voice, very close now, said again: "Enough."

The hand released his shoulder as it felt his muscles relax in a sign that he would not jump at this point in time, and he turned around on the spot to look up into Sesshomaru's calm, beautiful face.


	6. To arms

Chapter VI: _To arms _

Hemmed in between Sesshomaru and the Bone Eater's well, Inuyasha locked eyes with his half-brother. He planted his feet firmly and held his head high, but he was still reeling from reopening the wounds in his heart and mind over Kagome, and this was not a good time to have to face the taiyoukai.

The raw emotions that had just shot through him left him feeling exposed now, and slightly cowed by Sesshomaru's imposing proximity – although he would die before ever admitting that. So he assumed an air of boldness he did not own right there and then, and held his eyes steady through sheer force of obstinacy.

He waited for Sesshomaru to say why he was here. But the taiyoukai remained silent and still, plumbing the depths of the hanyou's soul with his unwavering golden gaze.

Under the surface, Inuyasha frantically tried to drain the pool of naked vulnerability that had collected in his heart, smothering his courage, and to replace it with a flow of bravery which was, unfortunately for him, trickling into the gap at a miserable pace.

To shore up his confidence, he cleared his throat audibly, strongarmed his tongue into service and said with mock seriousness: "You know, Sesshomaru, most people don't stand quite this close and stare into each other's eyes for this long without deciding whether they're going to kiss or kill each other. So which will it be?"

A small growl of annoyance issued from Sesshomaru's throat, but it was accompanied by a fractional turning aside of his body, a miniscule gesture which communicated to Inuyasha that it was safe to move out of that tight space into which he had been sandwiched for the past few minutes.

He took several steps from the well, faced his brother again at a more comfortable distance, and asked: "Why are you here?"

Sesshomaru ignored his query and posed a question of his own: "Is _this_ what you were doing on the night you were human? Wallowing here in self-pity?"

Inuyasha gave no answer, which was as good as an answer for Sesshomaru, who promptly pronounced his verdict: "You idiot."

"Have you come here to insult me?" Inuyasha snapped.

"No. I came to see if your life was still worth preserving. Apparently, it is not. "

"So you'll appoint yourself to the task of putting me out of my misery?"

"Look at yourself, Inuyasha," Sesshomaru snarled. "Grovelling inside a filthy well like a worm, pining after some lost female."

"You know nothing about what I'm doing here, you jackass!" Inuyasha stormed, the heat intensifying in his blood, his mind spinning furiously to try and remember exactly how much Sesshomaru knew about the workings of the well.

"You're pathetic," Sesshomaru spat. "If Father knew this was what his hanyou son would come to, he would think it more honourable for me to end your existence than to let you drag yourself through the dirt like prey, inviting every passing beast to feed on you."

Inuyasha's rising pride and rage drove him to yell at Sesshomaru: "Fine! Then try and end it, you son of a bitch!"

Even as he shouted out that challenge and drew the Tetsusaiga, which flared into the mighty fang it truly was, a tiny voice sounded through the rush of blood in his head: _Oh, kami, I'm supposed to live for Kagome – I'm not supposed to die yet – what the hell am I doing?_

And he knew that his heart simply wasn't in it – he really didn't want to fight right here, right now.

He stood poised for Sesshomaru's attack, but he sneered instead of flying at him, and said: "I'm not going to let you die that quickly, Inuyasha. Let's see how long you'll keep crawling on through your miserable existence after I destroy all hope for recovering what you had."

Then Sesshomaru launched an assault on the well.

Inuyasha cried out in fury, terror surging through every pore as he realised that even if he or Kagome found some way to reopen the portal, it might no longer work if the physical structure was wrecked. What if Kagome came through only to be crushed by the weight of the earth because the well had crumbled into nothing? What if its destruction here meant that the well of the future would abruptly vanish, because it would have ceased to exist five hundred years back in its past?

He could not risk using the Tetsusaiga's powers, because his target was right there beside the thing he had to preserve, and a blast of the wind scar or a shower of diamond shards might do worse damage to the well and its surroundings than to Sesshomaru.

Dipping his claws into his chest, he hurled a frantic barrage of his own blood at his brother, only to see him deflect every one of the crimson blades with ease.

In desperation, Inuyasha dived into the blaze and swirl of the lightning-like whip that issued from Sesshomaru's claws, with which the demon had already slashed the well casing thrice, making the surprisingly resilient timber split and groan. Wielding Tetsusaiga like a regular sword, he parried the path of the whip away from the well, then blocked off the lash again on its return as Sesshomaru swung a backhand blow at the casing.

"Damn you, Sesshomaru! Fight me! _I'm_ your target!" he yelled, positioning his body between the well and the powerful being bent on reducing it to rubble.

Sesshomaru hung fire, arcs of light leaping between the claws of his hand, ready for the next round of battle, and asked in a voice brimming with contempt: "Is this what you want to die for, little brother? _This?_"

"No, you bastard, it's what I want to _live_ for!" Inuyasha roared and charged at him, fending off with his sword the cracks of the whip that now came crashing down upon him.

He drove Sesshomaru back, away from the well, and took aim at him with the Tetsusaiga, ready to blow him to smithereens with a hailstorm of adamant shards before he could pull his usual lightning-swift trick of taking flight and reappearing somewhere else totally unexpected.

But Sesshomaru was lightning-swift in more ways than one, and he unfurled his whip directly at Inuyasha, gashing his wrist so deeply that the hanyou dropped the Tetsusaiga. Another flick, and Inuyasha's face was slashed all the way down the right, from forehead to jawbone, narrowly missing his eye, which had been protected only by its socket.

Before he could lunge for the Tetsusaiga, stuck in the grass a body-length away from him, Sesshomaru flew at him, slammed the palm of his right hand into his body and sent him reeling backwards, all the breath driven out of his lungs from that single blow directly below his ribcage.

Inuyasha staggered on his feet for another moment or two, then dropped to his knees, dazed, bleeding and completely winded. The seconds passed and he thought that was how he was going to die – simply from being unable to breathe, for his lungs were paralysed.

Inhaling toxic miasma and all the rest of that shit was one thing, but not being able to draw breath at all was another.

His hands sought the ground before him, and he could not keep his head from drooping even as Sesshomaru walked towards him.

The taiyoukai seized a handful of Inuyasha's hair and jerked his head up so he could look into his face.

"You fool," he heard Sesshomaru snarl, and knew this was it – this was how it would end, on his knees in the dirt at his brother's hands.

But the blow that struck him between his shoulder blades in the very next moment was not from poison claws or steel or fangs, but a smart thump on his back that snapped his lungs into action so that the life-giving air rushed into his body, and he gulped it all in greedily like a creature saved from drowning.

Sesshomaru released the fistful of hair he had grabbed, leaving both hands free to take hold of his brother under his arms and haul him across the grass to a fallen tree, upon whose thick trunk he sat him as if he were a misbehaving child in for a stern lecture.

Inuyasha, light-headed from hyperventilating, stared blankly from his perch as Sesshomaru, not a hair out of place, lowered himself to his level and sat on his haunches before him to push back his messed-up hair with his fingers so that he could peer into his face. _He's not looking into my eyes, though,_ Inuyasha thought numbly. _He's looking at the slash he just made all the way down my pretty little cheek. The jackass._

But now the jackass was examining his wrist, scrutinising the deep gash that had made him drop Tetsusaiga, and muttering something. It took a moment for Inuyasha's ears to register that what he had said was: "You'll live."

Sesshomaru moved to rise, but Inuyasha clutched at the right sleeve of his haori with his good hand and held him back as he forced out these words with effort: "Touch the well again… and I swear I'll haunt you from hell… for the next three thousand years of your sorry life."

"Inuyasha, you are an idiot," the taiyoukai said, snatching his sleeve back from the fingers that gripped it, and drawing himself up to his full height.

"You told me that already, you jerk."

Ignoring him, Sesshomaru continued: "If I had truly wished to destroy the well, do you think I couldn't have reduced it to nothing with a single blow?"

Still woolly-headed, Inuyasha tried but could not process at normal mental speed what Sesshomaru was saying. He was starting to feel like the idiot his brother declared him to be when it clicked.

"Are you telling me that you were just testing me, you scumbag?"

"Inuyasha, I do not know when or if that miko will return. But until she does, or until you determine that she never will, I want to know that you will live fully or die honourably, not waste away through the remainder of your existence. The girl may be gone, but there are other things worth living and dying for."

"Like what?" Inuyasha inquired.

"Do I have to teach you everything?" Sesshomaru countered rhetorically.

"Huh. Well, you could try teaching me how slicing my face open and almost taking my hand off counts as 'testing' me. You call _this_ testing?" Inuyasha asked, wide-eyed, indicating the deep gash on his right wrist that went all the way down to the bone.

"It will heal in half a day, you spoilt brat," Sesshomaru growled.

Wading through the haze in his brain, and conveniently forgetting that he had always fully recovered from taiyoukai-arm-sized holes right through his abdomen, punctured eyeballs courtesy of the very same being and worse, Inuyasha stared dazedly at the gash and murmured: "I don't know, it looks pretty serious to me."

He heard Sesshomaru inhale deeply and release the breath in a sigh. That was followed by his stooping down in front of him again, this time looking into his eyes. Then he took Inuyasha's hand and re-examined the exposed flesh and bone of his wrist.

"If it makes you feel better…" Sesshomaru said, letting his words trail off as he lifted the injured wrist to his mouth, pressed his lips to the gash and probed the wound with his tongue. As he tended to the gash, he locked his eyes on Inuyasha's again, holding his gaze and reading his reaction on his face.

_Oh dear heaven,_ was the first thought that floated through Inuyasha's head. _Sesshomaru's tongue is in my wrist._

The second series of thoughts that came to Inuyasha was: _Doesn't he have toxic breath or drool or something? Maybe he's trying to kill me in a whole new way – Death by Dog Breath Delivered Directly to Wrist. Maybe he can control when it's poisonous or not. Or maybe it happens only when he's a giant dog._

The third thought that drifted into his mind was: _Hell, that hurts, but it somehow feels pretty damn good. Oh kami, what am I thinking?_

His thoughts were interrupted by Sesshomaru saying: "It should heal faster now." He released his hand but still looked directly into Inuyasha's eyes.

"You're _really_ not trying to kill me any more, are you?" the hanyou asked, somewhat stupidly.

"You really are an idiot, aren't you? I'm trying to protect you," Sesshomaru replied.

The declaration caught Inuyasha off-guard, hitting a tender spot in his psyche. He fought the tears that suddenly threatened to well up in his eyes for Kagome, for Kikyo, for his mother's death so long ago, for everyone he had ever cared about and lost, and most of all, for wondering if he might not possibly be completely safe for the first time in his life.

To wrest back control of his emotions and keep his demeanour calm, he forced himself to speak in a small but steady voice, saying to Sesshomaru: "Well then, finish the job, why don't you? You've missed a spot."

He pointed to the long, bloodied line on his face, cut open by Sesshomaru's whip.

The taiyoukai scanned his eyes for a moment longer, to be certain that the hanyou wasn't babbling from pure brain damage. Seemingly satisfied by what he saw, he drew his head towards him and kissed the cut on his brow. His lips traced the line downwards to his eyelid, where he planted another kiss and a warm lick as Inuyasha closed his eyes, slowly working his way down over his cheek till he reached his jawbone, where the wound ended.

"Better?" he asked, drawing back, but keeping one hand on the back of the half-demon's head.

Inuyasha opened his eyes and nodded.

"Hmm. You said earlier that I should either kiss you or kill you. I seem to have gone with the kissing option."

Mutely, Inuyasha nodded again. The tears kept threatening, and he felt like a brittle vessel about to crack. This was ridiculous. He couldn't cry in front of _anyone_, especially not _Sesshomaru_.

But he was right there scrutinising his features and penetrating him with those golden eyes that missed nothing, and all it took was for him to say in gentler tones than usual: "Just let it out before you choke and drown," for Inuyasha to fold into his brother's arms, prompting the taiyoukai to ease into a sitting position on the grass with one leg folded under him and the other drawn up.

Inuyasha still refused to let the tears flow, however. It was horrible enough that he was clinging to Sesshomaru's left arm – the one he had once hacked off with the Tetsusaiga – like a traumatised child holding tight to everything that represented security; he didn't need to go the whole hog and cry like a baby as well, did he? As it was, he would never live this down. _Ever._

Then he felt Sesshomaru undoing his breastplate with his free hand and setting the armour aside on the ground so that he could pull him closer without crushing him against sharp spikes and unyielding plates. He felt him stroke his hair and his ears and heard him say: "I've got you."

And that was when the tears came.


	7. In my mind's eye

Chapter VII: _In my mind's eye_

It was the middle of the afternoon on the fifth day following the new moon when Kaede, Shippo and Rin returned to the village.

"Inuyasha!" Shippo called out happily, his bushy tail quivering with delight to see the familiar sight of the red-clad hanyou slouching in a tree, resting on a high branch from which he could look out over the village.

"Inuyaaaasha!" Rin echoed in greeting as she raced Shippo to the foot of the tree.

"Hey, you're a day late – but you all _actually_ made it back in one piece!" the half-demon said, raising his eyebrows to express feigned surprise, as he landed lightly on the ground to let Shippo hop onto his shoulder and to pick Rin up, tossing her into the air to make her squeal.

"That's much more fun than riding on Hachi or Ah-Un!" she giggled when he caught her. "Please do it again!"

He obliged, and the peals of laughter which rang out from her made him chuckle. She was much more playful now, more accustomed to village society, and a tad less obedient than she had been when Sesshomaru had first left her here. She had also grown taller, and looked better-nourished under Kaede's care, though she was still noticeably smaller than other human children close to her in age – and a piece of cake for Inuyasha to toss. Rin herself did not know how old she was, but Kaede had guessed that she was now about nine.

"Did you know – we saw Sesshomaru at Sango's village!" Shippo told Inuyasha excitedly.

_I know. He told me._

"Sesshomaru-sama went there to see me. He gave me that plant!" Rin twisted in Inuyasha's arms to point at a little cloth parcel which Kaede was toting separately from the large bundle slung across her shoulders. Kaede raised her arm to give Inuyasha an unimpeded view of the carefully wrapped-up sprig, growing from a little ball of earth, which she carried in her hand.

Shippo teased Rin over Inuyasha's shoulder about her transparent pleasure at seeing Sesshomaru in the slayers' village. "And she cried after Sesshomaru left!" the kitsune sang as Rin tried to grab his tail to make him shut up. "She tried to hide it, but I saw her tears!"

_Tears._

_No bawling, thank the heavens. No sobbing. Just rivers of silent tears as I hid my face in his sleeve and got the silk all soaked, and he held me as if he would never let me go._

Dragging himself away from the thoughts that had ambushed him, and which he could share with his friends only inside his head, the hanyou turned to the old priestess as he juggled the squirming kitsune and girl, and asked her: "How are Sango and Miroku?"

"They're very well, Inuyasha. The village is still deserted apart from them, Kohaku and Kirara, but they are doing what they can to make it more comfortable."

"Are they going to live there for good?"

"I do not think they have arrived at a final decision. I don't know that it would be wise for them to be surrounded daily by so many things that only bring sad memories."

Inuyasha knew that Sango and Kohaku still wept over the graves of their father and the band of demon slayers wiped out by Kohaku under Naraku's spell, and all the other villagers who had been killed in the massacre timed to coincide with the absence of their best warriors. Kohaku had never let go of that guilt.

_Guilt._

_He didn't say so, and his voice remained as cool and even as ever, but I knew he was thinking about the time he made a demon masquerade as my dead mother, and how much that had hurt me. I knew it when I rested my head in his lap after I was done crying, and said I was sorry I'd called his mother a bitch, and __I had to do my best not to laugh when he said it was of no account, because she _was_ in fact a bitch. Then he said: "Father loved your mother very much." And he didn't have to say more for me to know what he meant._

He tore himself back to the present conversation and joked: "Well, we'll leave it to Miroku to persuade Sango that they need to make a village's worth of babies to repopulate the place – that would be right up his alley!"

"Inuyasha," Kaede cautioned. "Less baby-making talk in front of the children, please."

"It's not as if they're not old enough to know where babies come from, you know," the hanyou protested, pulling a face. "Say – you three didn't walk all the way back from there, did you? You'd have had to start out a month ago, at _your_ pace!"

"Of course not," Kaede said reproachfully, glaring at him for making fun of her physical slowness. "Hachi flew and carried us up to the edge of the village. He didn't want to come through the barriers although I offered to remove them for him, because he said they would make him feel ill."

"Bah, what a wimp," Inuyasha snorted. "Only brainless, human-eating youkai would be fried by your barrier. A demon like Hachi would have no trouble with it. Even Shippo can easily cross it now without feeling so much as an ant-bite."

_Sesshomaru probably wouldn't even notice it was there._

Kaede had long ago worked out that Inuyasha's habitual insults were a display of friendly affection, and she merely rolled her one remaining eye skyward before they continued on their way to her hut, distributing to various villagers who came up to greet them parcels of herbs and medicine that they had collected during their trip.

"Sango and Miroku asked after you," Kaede told Inuyasha, when they reached the doorway of her hut, where he let Shippo and Rin off his shoulders.

Rin took her precious plant from Kaede and ran off to find a good patch of earth to grow it in, with Shippo in tow.

"They were very concerned about you, but I assured them that you were perfectly fine," Kaede continued once they were past the screen hanging in the doorway, and the children were out of sight. "You _are_ all right, aren't you?"

The look the old miko gave him – even with her single eye – was expressive enough for him to know that she was thinking about the well, probing to find out if he had been haunting the place all day and night as she and Shippo had feared he would.

"Old woman, I'm fine," Inuyasha insisted, succeeding in sounding offended, as he crossed his arms and looked her straight in the eye.

"Hmph. You had better be. So what did you get up to while we were away?"

_Let's see… went to the well exactly like I wasn't supposed to, turned human, almost got eaten, got kissed by Sesshomaru… hmm, where to start? _

"Nothing," he replied. "At least nothing that would be any of your business."

Kaede huffed in exasperation and chose to leave him be until he was in a more communicative mood. As she turned to unwrap her bundle and sort out the clothing, herbs and edible mushrooms in it, Shippo came running back into the hut and jumped onto Inuyasha's shoulders again just as he seated himself on the floor.

"Inuyasha! I almost forgot to tell you – we saw a ghost at Sango's village!" the fox-child announced.

"Huh? A ghost?"

"Yeah, we –" the kitsune broke off abruptly as he sniffed once, sniffed again, put his nose into the hanyou's hair and neck, and snuffled around a bit more.

"Hey, hey, hey – what do you think you're doing?" Inuyasha demanded, reaching an arm back to remove Shippo from his head and dangle him before his face.

"I _thought_ I detected it earlier at the tree, but there was so much going on I wasn't sure. Now I'm sure," the fox said in a too-loud voice. "You smell all over of Sesshomaru!"

Kaede turned from her unpacking and stared at Inuyasha. "Did you meet Sesshomaru-sama?"

"Uh, yeah – we kind of got into a fight."

_And made up._

"What?" Shippo exclaimed, still dangling there after having failed to get out of Inuyasha's grasp. "I thought you two had stopped all that! What did you fight about?"

"The same old stupid stuff, as usual. Insults, more insults, that sort of thing. But it's fine now – the fighting stopped after a bit and we didn't part on bad terms. Really."

_Really._

"Hey, Shippo – don't tell Rin. And lower your voice. She'll be upset if she knows I've been fighting with him."

"Did you get injured?" Kaede asked.

"Sort of – he got me with his whip, but as you can see, it's all healed."

_All kissed better._

"Isn't that whip thing of his poisonous?" Shippo asked as Inuyasha set him down on the floor.

"Yeah… but you know, he's used it on me tens of times before, and he's tried to melt me with his claws, and kill me with his dog-breath and all, and somehow none of it ever really affected me that much. Maybe I'm more immune to his poison than most."

_Besides, this time, he licked every last bit of it out of my wounds._

"By the way," Inuyasha said, changing the subject. "I thought you were supposed to get back here yesterday. I decided that if I saw no sign of you by this evening, I'd go looking for you."

"Oh, that's what I was trying to tell you when I came back in!" Shippo said. "We were late because of the ghost!"

"Not necessarily a _ghost_, Shippo," Kaede corrected. To Inuyasha, she added: "We were delayed because we stayed back one more day to investigate a suspicious figure that appeared briefly in the village. It looked like a human child, but it wasn't human or demon. Sango and Kohaku were very certain that it did not resemble any of the children of the village who had died in the massacre, so we did not think it was a ghost. However, it had no scent and gave off nothing by which it could be traced. An apparition."

"Yeah, it definitely had no scent and no youki," Shippo concurred. "Neither Kirara nor I could detect it except by sight. And we didn't see it for long."

"An apparition?" Inuyasha echoed thoughtfully. He preferred to steer clear of such things, because there was no way to tackle them with claws, fists and swipes of a weapon. Dealing with them required research and study into why they had appeared and what would work on them – and research and study had never been the hanyou's strengths. He left that sort of thing to Miroku and Kaede.

"I've seen such things before," Kaede continued. "They normally cannot hurt us physically as they have no bodies, but they can be raised through spells, or spells can be put on them, to carry out certain instructions from their masters."

"And you didn't see any sign of it again?"

"None. It was looking around near the graves when we spotted it, then it was gone, and never reappeared. Anyway, that's why we're late. We left after Kohaku assured us that he and Kirara would stay there for at least the next few days. Hachi is also heading back there right now in case his help is needed."

"And there I was thinking you'd stayed longer because you were having such a great time."

_Time._

_He caressed__ my ears, smoothed down my hair once more before dawn, and put his armour back on. "You can come with me if you wish," he said, his face as hard to read as always, but I told him no, you lot were due back that day; you'd worry if I wasn't here when you returned. Didn't he wish to wait at the village for Rin? I asked. And he said: "Another time." Then he kissed me on the forehead and left._

For the rest of that day, they sorted through the things the returning trio had brought back, worked to get the evening meal ready, and helped Kaede check that the barriers and spells she had put up all around the village had held up well in her absence.

Ready at last to retire for the night, Kaede lay down in her usual corner of the hut while Rin and Shippo unrolled their mats and blankets near each other, and Inuyasha rested as he typically did, sitting up against the wall near the doorway, the Tetsusaiga securely clasped in his folded arms.

He needed very little sleep, and occasionally spent nights up in trees, but tonight he stayed indoors, taking in the sounds and movements of his friends sleeping nearby, the warm smells of the herb-filled hut, and the lingering scent of Sesshomaru all over his clothes and hair and skin.

He waited till the others were deep in sleep, till he was sure they wouldn't see him, before he let himself lie down on his side, on the floor of the hut. He was not weary, but it soothed him to curl up a little as he had that night, his cheek pillowed by Sesshomaru's silk-clad thigh, the back of his head pressed up against his brother's abdomen, while the taiyoukai, pale as moonlight, sat cross-legged on the grass, sleepless, untiring and watchful.

_The night was still hours away from ending, and my head still rested in his lap as his length of fur curled about me, while he gently raked my hair with his claws to untangle it. _

"_Why are you doing this?" I asked._

_He took a long time to reply. But at last, he said: "If I were to give you a trite answer about how I have changed, or how I realised that my former treatment of you was despicable, it would be too simple to be an __accurate answer. I do not think I have the words to express the truth in all its complexity. Suffice to say that I want you to be strong, and when you are not, I want you to heal, and when you cannot, I want to be able to protect you until you can. Will that do for now?"_

"_It will have to," I said. "You never were one for words – I__'m not sure that I've ever heard you say so much thoughtful stuff in one go."_

_We were quiet for a while, then I asked: "But you weren't watching out for me on the night of the new moon, were you?"_

"_No. It was a coincidence that I was nearby when you were attacked.__" _

"_I'm glad you were there, anyway."_

"_Inuyasha, you were always able to take care of yourself, in the days when I wanted you dead, as well as later, when I no longer wished to destroy you. You also had your friends. I did not think I was required to watch over you, and I did not want to. I knew about your foolish behaviour at the well after the miko disappeared, but at the time, I considered it none of my affair if you chose to waste your life. Only on the night of the new moon did it strike me how vulnerable you could be. And I wanted to be there for you. It was not an obligation. It was a choice."_

"_So you started caring what I did with myself only after that night?" I mused._ _I had to bite back a grin, but I couldn't stop myself – I simply had to say it, even if it made him mad: "Don't tell me you suddenly found me irresistible after seeing me naked?"_

_He would have been well within his rights to punch me, or drop my head on the grass for being cheeky, but __again, he surprised me. He said nothing, and didn't hit me, so I peered up at him from where I lay in his lap, and he inclined his head ever so slightly to look down at me, and he had just a hint of a trace of the tiniest smile possible on his face._

_I'd never felt __safer in my life._


	8. Black and deep desires

Chapter VIII: _Black and deep desires_

They could hear the sharp smack to his head from half a lane away, and the reproach that accompanied it: "I realise you've felt somewhat deprived as we've been living in a village where I'm the _only_ woman around, but could you at least behave with dignity? Your tongue practically reached the ground – no wonder the poor girl was terrified."

The explanation that glided out in response to that accusation was as smooth as ever: "My dear Sango, I was only admiring the print of her yukata. And I believe it was the ferocious look on _your_ beautiful face that frightened her."

"I should have known that marriage wouldn't change you one bit."

"Hey, Sango!" Inuyasha yelled from the doorway of Kaede's hut at the two figures up the lane. "Don't give him such a hard time – he _must_ have changed if he only looks now and doesn't touch!"

"Inuyasha!" Sango and Miroku called in unison, their faces lighting up under the afternoon sun.

He walked out to meet the monk and slayer, pleased to see that under the superficialities of their comfortable squabbling, they looked deeply happy to be husband and wife. Sango no longer wore the haunted look on her pretty face that had shadowed it when Kohaku was under Naraku's control; Miroku's countenance glowed with contentment, despite the sore new spot on his crown.

"It's good to see you!" Miroku said warmly, grasping his shoulder, as they came together along the lane.

At almost the same time, Sango gripped his other arm and exclaimed: "You're looking well!"

"You two look like married life suits you," the hanyou remarked.

Their spat forgotten, the couple glanced at each other with smiles in their eyes, and it gave Inuyasha a small pang to think of what could have been if Kagome had stayed. But he eased the twinge aside to focus on his friends, and asked: "Did Kohaku come with you?"

"No, he's been hired by a village ten miles north from ours to help them kill a demon that's been eating their cows," Sango replied. "He's doing very well – he doesn't need me with him any more for jobs like these."

"And that's good," Miroku said. "Sango and I want to start a family very soon, so it would be best for her not to go flying all around the country slaying youkai."

Sango coloured. "Must you share our family-planning details with everyone? You've told Kaede, Kohaku, Hachi, Myoga… you even told Shippo and Rin!"

"That's because I can't wait for you to have my children, Sango," Miroku said sweetly, in mimicry of the days when he would clasp the hands of any passing female of childbearing age to give her his spiel. Those hands, which at this moment clasped Sango's, were bare now, free of the sealing wraps and prayer beads that had once covered the Naraku-cursed, all-consuming hole in his palm. He was free of that, and blessed many times over with Sango in his life.

"You're impossible," she chided, leaving it at that as Kaede, Shippo and Rin stepped out to welcome them into the hut. Shippo hopped into Miroku's arms while Sango took Rin's hand and asked her how she was, and how Lord Sesshomaru's plant was faring.

It was eight days ago that Kaede, Shippo and Rin had come back to the village, so it was surprising to see Sango and Miroku making a return visit so soon.

"Not that we aren't thrilled to see you," Inuyasha said as their little group seated themselves on the floor of Kaede's hut around the spot where they usually ate. "But I get the feeling this visit isn't entirely social? The fact that Sango's in her demon-slaying garb gives me just a hint that something's come up."

Since getting married, Sango had spent much more time in simple yukata and skirts than her curve-hugging taijiya's outfit, as she gradually handed over demon-slaying duties to her brother.

"Something _has_ come up," Miroku admitted. "I presume Kaede-sama has told you about the apparition we saw at our village?"

Inuyasha's and Shippo's ears pricked up. "You saw it again?" the kitsune asked.

"No, we didn't," Miroku said. "However, we were troubled enough by it to investigate further, so we visited neighbouring villages to ask if they knew anything about it, and it transpires that they have seen it too – the same child-like apparition, searching for something, but no one knows what. They in turn have heard from other villages that have sighted it. So it's obviously been going from place to place all around this region."

"Did they say if it looked like a girl- or boy-child?" asked Inuyasha, the only one of their group who had not seen it before.

"No one is sure, and neither were we when we saw it – its facial features and dressing were neutral enough to resemble either a female or male child."

Kaede glanced at Rin while pouring out the tea to see that her eyes had grown as big as well-stuffed onigiri, while Shippo looked worried to hear that the apparition had been seen in so many locations.

"Maybe the children should leave the hut while we talk about this," the old miko suggested.

Rin took her suggestion at once and ran outside to the garden with her teacup, but Shippo bristled, insisting that he was no longer a child, and was an experienced enough warrior to take on any apparition.

"Yeah, sure, from the safety of Kagome's arms," Inuyasha snorted.

Everyone fell silent at the mention of Kagome, fearing that the hanyou had spoken her name unconsciously and would start mourning her loss all over again once he realised it.

"Hey, enough of that," Inuyasha said, when he noticed everyone staring into their teacups. "You don't have to tiptoe around the subject of Kagome. I miss her, and I'm not giving up on her, but I won't mope about uselessly any more. I wouldn't want her to mope over there, and I know she wouldn't want me to do that here, so I'd like to think we can both get on usefully with our lives until we work out a solution. Now, what have you learnt about this apparition thing?"

The relief in his friends' eyes would have been almost comical to him, if the situation hadn't been quite so sad, but he was taking Sesshomaru's words seriously, and refused to let himself sink into misery.

"When we saw the apparition that night, the glimpses we had of it were too fleeting for us to notice anything other than its facial features and dressing," Miroku said. "But when we spoke to the monks and miko at the temples and shrines of the villages we visited, a number of them told us they had observed that it carried something that looked like a vessel of the kind used for storing potions."

Sango chimed in: "They too didn't sense any signature youki from it. But like us, they felt its presence purely from the tingle in the air that told them something that didn't belong was nearby. And we all agreed that it did not seem to be shikigami in nature – if it were, Kaede-sama would have known it immediately."

Kaede nodded. "If it had been such, I would have identified it as that. But while superficially similar, it gave me a very different sensation from the shikigami that shrine miko know how to control. This had a touch of the dark occult about it."

They were familiar with these things, not least because Kikyo had kept a pair of shikigami helpers after Naraku had tried to destroy her at Mount Hakurei.

"It's impossible to track something that only makes a tingle in the air while present, and leaves no trace once it's gone," Miroku sighed. "However, the vessel gives us a clue. I've read reports of such cases in temple records – these apparitions are usually conjured up to carry out tasks involving the collecting of specific essences."

"Eh? Essences?" Inuyasha asked.

"The apparitions are controlled by witches or warlocks who send them into places like battlefields, graveyards, even bedrooms, using the vessels to collect strong lingering emotions like hatred, rage, grief, lust or love, which can be used to create potions."

"But if it's an apparition with no physical body, how can it be carrying a vessel?" Inuyasha asked. "And how do you collect an emotion?"

"The vessels too are conjured up by the witches and warlocks to act as energy traps for the specific essences they want to harvest. These vessels are as bodiless as the apparitions are – but so are the emotions they are designed to glean – and some reports say that once they are returned to the master, he or she can extract their contents and add them to actual potions, which they use on their enemies, or sell to the rich. It's not an easy craft; few occult practitioners can truly master it."

"But if it's just for potions, then we have nothing to be concerned about, right? I mean, it doesn't sound like it's working for someone seeking world domination," Inuyasha remarked.

Miroku replied: "Unfortunately, I _am_ concerned. The few cases I've read indicate that these apparitions need only collect a small amount of whatever they seek for their masters to make a few potions to sell or use. One visit, and they're out of there. _This_ apparition has been all over the region, so it is either collecting a great deal of something, or seeking the highly unusual. And whether it's harvesting enough to equip an army, or trying to gather something that could occur only in rare situations, it gives me an uneasy feeling. Imagine, for instance, someone distilling enough wrath to sprinkle over the entire countryside and drive every person for miles around into a rage – the consequences would be horrendous. We've been hoping to track down its master somehow and question him or her, but we haven't had any success, and no one we've asked has any idea."

"We're still searching for clues, but as we found ourselves nearby, we decided to drop in to see you, and to keep you informed about the situation," Sango added.

"I could join you," Inuyasha offered.

"Me too!" Shippo chirped.

"We considered that," Sango began with a smile. "But we don't have Kirara with us, so we would travel far too slowly for you. It took us seven days just to wind our way down here!"

"I could carry you while Miroku runs, you know," Inuyasha scoffed. "Forget Shippo – he floats along so slowly, he might as well walk."

"Carrying me and my heavy old hiraikotsu is hardly the same as carrying Kagome and her tiny pack of food and books, you know," Sango laughed as Shippo tried unsuccessfully to pummel Inuyasha. "Kirara's fine because she flies – you can't. By the time we find what we're looking for, you'll be too worn out to help us fight it!"

"I would not!" Inuyasha scoffed. Again, he had to ease away the tug at his heart as he remembered Kagome on his back, her bare thighs pressed to his sides, her face close to his. "What do you think I am? Some kind of weakling?"

Miroku chuckled. "How about this, then – I would be jealous of seeing my beautiful wife clinging so intimately to another male."

Inuyasha flushed and shot a glare at Miroku. "Huh. You know I wouldn't touch Sango inappropriately, unlike _someone_ I know before he married her."

Miroku laughed, and then suggested: "Why don't we wait here a couple of days to see if Hachi comes by? If he does, we might be able to persuade him to carry us about. Kohaku is probably done with his mission, but he moves on to other areas to keep demon activity in check once he's finished a job, so we are unlikely to be able to borrow Kirara."

"Speaking of our flying friends," Sango said. "We ran into Sesshomaru-sama riding his dragon when we were going about our investigations. He actually landed to talk to us, to our surprise. He too had heard about the apparition and was looking into it."

"Oh? When was this?" Inuyasha asked, with interest.

"Three days ago. He didn't say much, as usual, but judging by what that ugly little follower of his was rambling about before Sesshomaru shut him up, we gathered that they'd been investigating it for a few days by then."

"Oh," the hanyou said, suddenly feeling irrationally pleased.

He had neither seen nor heard from Sesshomaru since the morning he had left him with a kiss. Although his brother had driven home well the lesson that he had to live his own life, as two days without seeing him became three, and three slid into four, Inuyasha had not been able to help feeling just a bit like an abandoned lover.

Immediately after Kaede's return, he had spent three days pottering around the village doing every odd job in sight just to be useful, and to stop himself daydreaming like one of Kagome's silly schoolgirl friends with a crush. Then he had spent the next three days hunting cattle-eating youkai in the area to get his mind off it all, and returned to the village a couple of days ago to throw himself into more odd jobs, earning more meals than he, Kaede, Shippo and Rin could comfortably eat.

To hear that Sesshomaru had been away for a good reason, and wasn't avoiding what he surely thought of by now as his disturbingly wimpy, weepy, clingy hanyou half-brother, left him feeling nicely warm inside.

"Er… what's the matter with you?" Miroku's voice interrupted his rumination, making him look up with a start to find all his friends staring curiously at the dreamy expression on his face.

"Are you all right?" Sango asked. "You look strangely…"

"Happy," Miroku concluded. "You look happy, which is nice, but it's strange that you would suddenly look that way for no obvious reason."

"Ah… I just thought of… the meat we're having for dinner. The village headman gave us a massive chunk of venison this morning after I relaid his entire roof yesterday."

"_Venison_ makes you _that_ happy?" Miroku asked slowly, in disbelief.

"Actually, I prefer beef, but I'll take what I can get."

The looks they gave him – Shippo's mouth had fallen open slightly – were the kind of looks people gave those whose insanity they found too bizarre to politely ignore, but had decided to humour anyway.

He reflected that perhaps the venison excuse was a mite surreal, but it was probably still a good deal less surreal than the truth.

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Later that night, after the happy-making venison had been eaten – and everyone made certain that Inuyasha consumed an extra-large portion – they turned in for the night, covering every inch of Kaede's floor space with mats and blankets.

Shippo and Rin huddled close together, still unnerved by the earlier talk of the apparition, but Sango and Miroku's presence contributed to the comforting warmth indoors.

Sometime in the middle of the night, Inuyasha heard a familiar slapping sound, followed by Miroku's whispered protest: "But Sango, we're _married_!"

And Sango's hissed-out answer: "We are _not_ doing anything obscene in front of _all our friends_!"

"But it's _dark_!"

"You _do_ realise that Shippo and Inuyasha can _see_ in the dark? And the others aren't _deaf_, you know."

In that darkness, Inuyasha smiled to himself.

It was good to have friends.


	9. If I do feign

Chapter IX: _If I do feign_

Inuyasha sensed his presence first, detecting his familiar scent and youki from a distance early the next morning. But it was Rin, tending her patch of garden, who had the first glimpse of him.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" the girl's clear voice rang through their corner of the village, alerting everyone else in and around Kaede's hut to his arrival.

Inuyasha went to the door while the others remained behind the screen, inside.

Several villagers had already sighted the taiyoukai and gathered in small clusters up the lane to ogle him. He ignored them. He had become a more or less familiar figure to the people of this village because of his occasional visits to Rin, but he always presented a spectacular sight, with his imposing height, sweep of silver hair, pristine silk clothing paired with that massive roll of fur and intimidating armour that looked almost fantastical to the farming folk, the stripes over his cheekbones and wrists that seemed to them typical of predatory creatures, and the unworldly beauty of his face.

It was also the aura of power radiating from a physique which otherwise looked too slender to even stand up under all that fur, that captivated them.

Rin, likewise ignoring the gawking villagers, ran up to Sesshomaru and respectfully greeted him again: "Sesshomaru-sama!"

The light in her eyes and the smile on her face said all that needed to be said about how delighted she was to see him.

She never threw herself into his arms, or tried to touch him. Even in her moments of greatest terror in the past, when she had almost been killed and Sesshomaru had arrived to save her, she had never so much as clung to his hakama or haori sleeve in relief. She would simply run to him, stand near him with the full assurance that she was safe again, and the second he said "Come, Rin", would trot after him obediently.

Watching them from the doorway of the hut where he leaned against the frame, Inuyasha smiled inwardly to think how ironic it was that a child of nine or thereabouts who adored her guardian always had so much more restraint and dignity than he himself had lately possessed around Sesshomaru.

"Rin, I trust you are well?" the taiyoukai asked, looking down at the child craning her neck to gaze up at him.

"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama! I am very well, thank you." Rin had once always referred to herself in the third person, a quirk everyone guessed she had picked up from her guardian's former, arrogant habit of doing the same for himself. Fortunately, she had dropped the quirk, and now talked more like a normal child.

As they turned towards the hut, Sesshomaru raised his head to meet Inuyasha's eyes. Inuyasha looked steadily at him as he approached, not wanting his brother to think that he was still fragile, or that he was needy, and most of all, not wanting him to suspect for even half a second that he, Sesshomaru, had for the past ten days been unwittingly dividing up stage time with Kagome in the theatre of Inuyasha's mind.

He held up beautifully until Sesshomaru was fifteen feet away, which was when the taiyoukai's golden eyes slid smoothly from Inuyasha's face to his neck and down his body all the way to his toes, then back up again until their eyes locked. It took no more than a second, but it was a startlingly invasive once-over, leaving Inuyasha feeling as if he'd been undressed on the spot, appraised and assessed. What floored him most was that his assessor's eyes, normally so hard to read, seemed to say that they liked what they saw.

Mentally slapping himself and hurling at his body silent threats of immediate suicide if his knees failed him by going weak and exposing his shattered poise, the hanyou steadied himself against the door frame, and moved aside the hanging screen with his arm so that Sesshomaru and Rin could pass through into the hut.

They broke eye contact as Sesshomaru bowed his head so he wouldn't hit the top of the door frame, but his mokomoko brushed against the hanyou as he passed, sending a shiver through him.

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They were all indoors now, Sesshomaru, Inuyasha, Kaede, Miroku, Sango, Shippo and Rin. Sesshomaru seemed to fill the hut, and everyone gaped for a moment at the unusual sight of the taiyoukai inside a human dwelling.

Kaede broke the awkward silence. "Sesshomaru-sama, will you have some tea?"

"No, thank you," he said, and his deep, calm voice, too, seemed utterly out of place echoing within the humble hut.

Apparently conscious of the peculiarity of the situation caused by his entering Kaede's home and speaking politely to humans he had once despised, he remained silent for a few more seconds before saying to the elderly miko: "I have come to ask if I may take Rin out for the day."

"Of course, Sesshomaru-sama. It will be good for the child to spend some time with you."

"If Rin likes, Shippo can come along," he offered, looking at the girl, and Rin nodded enthusiastically.

The kitsune was startled. He had not realised that the taiyoukai even knew his name, or that he would ever deign to utter it if he did, and he sidled closer to Rin, unconsciously using her as a shield between himself and Sesshomaru.

"Will we see Jaken-sama and Ah-Un?" Rin asked.

"Yes," Sesshomaru replied. To the others present, he added: "I left them in the forest beyond the village. I did not want the villagers terrified by a dragon landing in their midst."

"Sesshomaru-sama," Miroku said respectfully. "May I ask if you have any news with regard to the apparition we have been trying to track?"

"That is another reason for my coming here today," he replied, looking at Miroku and Sango. "After I encountered you four days ago and learnt that you had been to the area north of here, I turned west. I myself have seen no sign of the apparition. However, the youkai contacts Jaken and I have spoken with have informed us that a demon may be involved in controlling it."

"A demon?" Miroku asked, surprised. "But our investigations indicated that such things are controlled by human witches and warlocks."

"That is so. But my sources have heard of a warlock who has mastered this obscure craft, and who works for a demon. Even this little information was available only because certain clans who briefly encountered such a human warlock some months ago detected the scent of youkai protection on him. It is unfortunate that none of them could identify what demon was associating with the warlock, except that it was powerful. We have thus deduced that the use of the apparition, which leaves no scent, is a means of further disassociating the demon from whatever is afoot, making it harder to trace."

"I understand," Miroku said. "If the demon uses only a human warlock to do its work, it can be tracked down through the human; but if the warlock in turn uses an apparition, it becomes almost impossible to find the demon."

"I don't like the sound of this," Inuyasha commented. "Why would a powerful youkai need a warlock to make potions for him?"

"That is the question no one has yet been able to answer," Sesshomaru said, turning a keen look upon Inuyasha that came very close to making colour creep into the hanyou's cheeks. "A strong youkai needs no potions to conquer its enemies in an honourable fashion. Claws and swords are all it should require."

"So it is up to something dishonourable," Miroku murmured thoughtfully, his ever-alert mind pondering the matter of the apparition while at the same time wondering why Inuyasha had lowered his eyes when Sesshomaru looked piercingly at him. The hanyou normally bristled, spoiling for a fight, in such instances.

Sango spoke up: "We had planned to move on to the villages west of here to keep looking into the matter. However, as you have communicated with your sources in that area, Miroku and I should perhaps go south."

"I would suggest that you cease your search for the time being," Sesshomaru advised. "I do not think we could find out much more about the nature of the apparition for now, nor can we locate its human and demon masters this way. May I propose instead that the houshi and miko use the knowledge they possess to find a means of trapping the apparition? Questioning it may be our best chance of finding out who controls it."

"It may not know who controls it," Kaede said. "It may simply be a thing that obeys orders without knowing what it does."

"Even so, it may reveal something that will give us a new lead," Sesshomaru replied. "We have learnt that it often appears near graves, battlefields and other places associated with death. If you find a way of containing it, share the method with other temples and shrines in the region – if one of them encounters it again and traps it, they can send word to you, and we can question it."

Miroku was aware of the significance of the moment: a proud demon who had previously regarded humans – and most other demons, for that matter – as less than the dirt beneath his feet was now politely asking them to work with him. "We shall look into possible ways of holding it, at least temporarily," he promised. "It may take us a number of days."

Sesshomaru nodded in acknowledgement, and to signify that the discussion was over. "Rin, shall we go?" he asked the child beside him.

"Yes," the girl said, and took Shippo's hand.

"I will bring them back here this evening," he said to Kaede.

The others bowed politely as he turned towards the door, but he paused halfway there, and surprised everyone with his next words: "Inuyasha, will you come with us?"

Inuyasha put on a nonchalant air and said with a casual shrug: "Yeah, sure." But the unconscious widening of his eyes and perking-up of his fuzzy ears were telltale signs of his pleasure at being asked along.

Sesshomaru let him, Shippo and Rin out through the door first, then stopped in the doorway and turned back to the other occupants of the hut to say, with a certain undertone in his voice that they would have sworn was as close as they would ever get to hearing Sesshomaru make a humorous comment: "I will return him to you by this evening too," as if Inuyasha were a child entrusted to him for the day.

Beyond the doorway, the hanyou scowled with embarrassment, but his eyes remained unclouded.

Miroku observed the scene before him with interest, and stepped out of the hut to stare after them as they walked towards the forest behind the village where Sesshomaru had left the dragon.

He moved the disparate bits of information around and around in his mind until they suddenly clicked into place, and the monk's eyes widened in astonishment.

"Ahhhh," he murmured knowingly, his twinkling eyes switching between the red-garbed hanyou and the pale taiyoukai disappearing into the forest. "So _that's_ Lord Venison."

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Shippo and Rin tormented Jaken all morning with their teasing and games, tearing around the meadow Sesshomaru had directed Ah-Un to fly them to. An out-of-the-way spot far from human settlements and the home bases of youkai clans, it was a quiet area that provided more than enough to entertain the young ones, let Ah-Un doze, and drive Jaken berserk.

Rocks for hiding places, flowers to pick and make posies of, a stream to play in, drink at and catch fish from, and gentle slopes to roll down – it was a perfect children's playground, and every kappa babysitter's nightmare.

"How do you find all these places?" Inuyasha had asked in amazement upon first landing in the meadow that morning.

"It helps to be able to fly," Sesshomaru answered matter-of-factly.

"No kidding."

It seemed like the perfect time and place to say so much more, and yet, the time did not seem right. Instead, Inuyasha remarked: "I'm surprised you'd want to take Rin on an outing when you're busy looking for the demon behind the apparition."

"I've done all I can for now, and I've neglected Rin long enough."

Mid-morning, and they still weren't talking about anything other than the children. Rin had expertly caught several fish from the stream for a snack, clearly retaining the survival skills she had been forced to learn while in Sesshomaru's protection.

"You sure didn't spoil that girl, did you?" Inuyasha asked his brother, while watching her herd and scoop out the fish, then take them to Jaken so he could cook them.

"No. She had to be able to take care of her own basic needs, as I knew I would often be away from her. But I should have fed her better at those times when she had nothing to forage for except fruit. I should have hunted animals to give her meat."

"You didn't know anything about caring properly for a human child back then. All things considered, I think you did a decent job."

More silence followed as they watched Shippo, Rin and Jaken fuss over the fire they were building on a pile of stones.

Now, in the late morning, he and Sesshomaru stood in the shade of the trees, watching Jaken dash about in a frenzy, the victim of some incomprehensible, improvised child's game of catch-plus-hide-and-seek.

Inuyasha waited till the sun was high in the sky to call out to Shippo and Rin: "Hey, get into the shade now, you two. I don't want you to fry. Kaede will have my hide for that. Look, I just went over to the other edge of the forest and found some pears you can eat to cool down. Come on, don't make me go out there and get you!"

But of course that was just what they wanted him to do, so he bounded into the field. Rin squealed and Shippo laughed as he caught them, one under each arm, and carried them under the trees where he dropped them on the grass.

He and Sesshomaru sat down beside them while they munched on the fruit, which Inuyasha also ate, and Sesshomaru declined. Shippo was still intimidated by this strange, sociable new side of a Sesshomaru who wasn't trying to kill him, and made sure that either Rin or Inuyasha sat between them at all times. Fortunately for his nerves, the taiyoukai seemed content just to watch Rin enjoying her day out away from her village chores, and did not try to speak to him.

When they had eaten the pears, Inuyasha told them: "Now for heaven's sake, lie down and rest before you collapse from exhaustion. Jaken certainly has."

Indeed, the kappa was slumped against Ah-Un's flank, out like a light.

The young pair continued giggling and teasing each other for a while, tossing fruit seeds and cores at each other from where they lay under the trees; but after a few minutes, the warmth of the day got to them, and they dozed off at last, covered in grass stains, fish scales and pear juice.

Shaking his head, Inuyasha muttered: "I'm going to have a real job cleaning them up this evening."

Sesshomaru looked at him appraisingly and said: "You make a much better guardian to young ones than I do."

"Ha. If Kagome heard you say that, she'd kill herself laughing. You have no idea how often she's got on my case for hitting Shippo – she used some weird term for it – 'child abuse', I think. Although the fact that he's full youkai and heals in zero time probably helped shut her up."

"It is good that you can now think of the miko without upsetting yourself."

Casting a glance at Sesshomaru, Inuyasha said: "I miss her, hot temper, sits and all, and I want her with me. But things are the way they are, and I'm not going to lose my mind over it until something practical can be done – isn't that what you beat into me eleven days ago?"

"Been counting the days since we last met, have you?" Sesshomaru asked, almost archly.

It hit too close to the truth for Inuyasha to avoid the creeping of colour into his cheeks. Sesshomaru _had_ filled his mind for days, but Kagome _hadn't_ left his thoughts at all either. It was bewildering: his desire for Kagome seemed to be coexisting tolerably with his fascination for all these intriguing new ways in which he and Sesshomaru were interacting – entirely unlike his previous inability to harmonise in any way whatsoever his love for Kikyo with his love for Kagome.

"Is this your way of distracting me from obsessing over Kagome?" he demanded. "And what was with that absolutely_ filthy_ look you gave me this morning in the village, anyway…?"

Sesshomaru, lifting a finger to his lips and indicating the sleeping children and kappa with a fractional turning of his head, warned him to lower his voice.

Sniffing the air and pricking up his ears, Inuyasha was relieved to find from their scents and the sound of their heartbeats that they had not been disturbed by his raised voice, and remained fast asleep.

Speaking more softly, he continued: "What are you doing, Sesshomaru? Trying to replace my obsession with her with an obsession with you?"

"No. I did not say you should forget the girl. When she returns, if she returns, she will be your mate. You should not forget her."

"Then what's all this about? Wanting to protect me is one thing; practically undressing me with your eyes is something else."

"Why would I need to undress you with my eyes when you voluntarily undress in front of me to jump into pools?"

"You –" Inuyasha spluttered. "You know what? I think you're just messing with my head. This is some kind of elaborate, long-drawn-out plan for revenge, and you're getting your kicks enacting it."

He contradicted his words, however, by staying put instead of stomping off to the other end of the meadow, and further contradicted them by not objecting when Sesshomaru reached out and fingered the ends of his hair.

"You got a thing for my hair?" he asked sulkily. "Might as well fondle your own, you know – it's a lot prettier, after all."

"And where would the fun be in that?"

"So this _is_ all just fun for you?"

"No," Sesshomaru said, and withdrew his hand.

Oddly, that made Inuyasha feel slightly guilty, as if he might have offended Sesshomaru, when heaven knows it was Sesshomaru who had been molesting his tresses.

"Look, I –" he began, and broke off, exasperated, not knowing what he had been about to say.

Sesshomaru waited to see if he would continue, and when he did not, the taiyoukai said: "May we say for now that we are both working this out along the way? Be patient. I am not asking you or myself for answers or decisions we cannot give or make as yet. Just be with me and bear with me until we both know what we are doing."

"You _don't know_ what you're doing? I never thought I'd hear you say that."

"I know that the more I see of you, the more I like what I see. That is what I know at this point. I am still examining the rest of it."

Inuyasha remained silent, pondering the proposition, his head still full of questions.

Sesshomaru watched him and waited, then lifted his left hand and stroked Inuyasha's face with the backs of his fingers, but the hanyou gripped his wrist with his own hand and stopped him from continuing with what he was doing. Sesshomaru gave him an inquiring look, only to see Inuyasha glancing over to where the children lay – Rin was showing signs of stirring, although she had not opened her eyes.

"Not in front of the children, Sesshomaru," he said with a gentle smile that communicated to his brother the message: _Yes, I'll be patient; yes, I'll bear with you_, even as he felt a bit like Sango reprimanding Miroku for his public displays of affection.

Sesshomaru obediently kept his hands to himself for the rest of the afternoon.


	10. Now, by my sword

Chapter X: _Now, by my sword_

Jaken could not believe his ill fortune. First he had spent an entire day run ragged by the human girl Rin, whom he thought he'd washed his hands of, and her insufferable kitsune friend. Humouring the latter was particularly galling, as Jaken had had unpleasant run-ins with him back in the day when Lord Sesshomaru still had the good taste to detest his horrible half-brother's equally unpalatable companions.

Then, when they had finally returned the awful children to the village, and he was on his way again with his beloved lord to search on for the apparition's unknown masters, he had been attacked by the bear oni. A hefty, crazed lump of black fur, wild eyes and claws several inches long it was, and it had charged them in the forest at dawn. He would have been minced in its jaws had Lord Sesshomaru not been there to maim it.

His master had snarled at the oni: "How dare you attack _my_ pack?" But the bear demon, apparently insane, had flown suicidally into an attack on the taiyoukai himself, who had driven it back twice, then when it charged a third time, promptly dispatched it. Lord Sesshomaru had sniffed the peculiar scents emitted by the demon, inspected its corpse and taken the unusual step of heaving the body over Ah-Un's back, after which he had abruptly turned right around and gone back the way they had come.

At the edge of the next forest, he had ordered Ah-Un to wait while he and Jaken went off together, which delighted Jaken – until they turned back into that same accursed village again.

Now, inside the shambles of a hut which the one-eyed miko called home, surrounded by those ghastly humans, the half-breed and that intolerable fox, Lord Sesshomaru described the bear youkai to his unworthy audience: "The odours that arose from its corpse were unusual, and heavy with sorcery. I think it would not be unreasonable to assume that we have seen the first sign of the effects the warlock's potions could have. The oni had marks on its body indicating that it had been restrained and confined for some time. Perhaps it was one of the sorcerer's first tests of the effects of his craft."

"This happened in the next forest?" the monk who had once beaten Jaken to a pulp in an old confrontation asked. "Could it mean that the warlock is nearby?"

"Not necessarily," Lord Sesshomaru said. "It appeared to have travelled a good distance, judging by the scents of many different forests I detected off its fur."

Then his master spoke again, and Jaken's heart sank like a stone into the vicinity of his stomach: "Jaken, you are to assist the houshi and miko as they look into ways of trapping the apparition. Use your knowledge of the occult and what we have learnt these past days, to offer any help they may require."

Jaken almost wept to hear that they would be remaining with these repulsive people, but he held himself in with the thought that if Lord Sesshomaru could do it, so could he. However, his lord's next words left his heart sinking deeper into his entrails and a chill seeping into his bones: "Remain here, or go wherever the houshi and miko take you, until I return."

Wait – Lord Sesshomaru wouldn't be here with him?

Jaken stared in disbelief as his cruel master turned to the humans and said: "If the smells from the oni are indeed the scent of the warlock's potions, I will remember them, and I hope to locate their source more easily. I will also go to the southern bear oni clans to find out what could have happened to their compatriot. Inuyasha, would you be willing to come with me?"

The hanyou's answer was: "Of course."

Jaken's head swam. Not only was his lord not letting him go on what would surely be an important visit to the southern bear oni clans, but he was taking that half-breed instead?

Swamped by the misery creeping over his little green body, Jaken vaguely heard the female demon slayer (he'd thought Kohaku's presence in the past bad enough, but horrors, now he was in the company of yet another slayer, his sister!) say: "The kuma oni are hostile and can be unreasonable. I do not doubt that you and Inuyasha could deal with them easily, but if you require an extra hand, I could go along."

He then heard the monk say with what seemed like unusual haste: "Oh no, Sango, you must stay here with me. I need your help. Sesshomaru-sama and Inuyasha will do very well _by themselves_, I am sure."

But that was all Jaken cared to take in as he stood in that hut, feeling that the air around him had been pumped full of poisonous vapours that were turning his innards to gruel. The moment Lord Sesshomaru and the worthless hanyou left the hut and were out of the village, he fell face-down on the floor and began to wail.

Rin pattered over, crouched beside him, and said sympathetically: "Don't be sad, Jaken-sama, I will look after you while Sesshomaru-sama is away."

All that did was to make him wail louder.

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South by dragon they flew, towards the territories of the black-coated bear youkai clans, with the body of the oni strapped to Ah-Un's rump. Sesshomaru held the dragon's reins while Inuyasha sat behind him. They had ridden that way to the meadow too, except that Shippo and Rin had been seated between them then, and Inuyasha had held the little ones securely with his right arm while holding with his other hand an un-spiked portion of the part of Sesshomaru's breastplate trim which encircled his left shoulder, to steady himself.

Sesshomaru had considerately swept his hair to one side the day before and tucked it into his haori so that it wouldn't stream back and lash the others in their faces. He had done the same today as they mounted Ah-Un, and said: "We will fly much faster and for longer than we did yesterday, so hold on to me."

"Will you catch me if I fall?" Inuyasha inquired mischievously.

"I'll consider it when you start falling," was Sesshomaru's deadpan reply.

"Right. Where do you want me to hold you?"

"Wherever you like."

"Really?" he asked, wondering what his brother would say if he wrapped his arms around his waist. But as they took to the air, he settled for resting his hands on his shoulders the way Kagome had done with him when he used to carry her on his back. To grip Sesshomaru's right shoulder, he had to slip his hand under the fur, which kept those fingers perfectly warm throughout the flight.

It took them all the hours of daylight to reach the territories of the southern bear clans, and they descended to earth in twilight, in a warm region of caves, rivers and thick forest. Inuyasha could already smell bear oni all around them, even before Ah-Un's talons touched the ground.

"You've landed right in the heart of their territory, haven't you?" he asked Sesshomaru.

"We might as well get straight to the point instead of wasting our time inching our way in like thieves," was the firm response, as they dismounted.

"What happened to the diplomatic taiyoukai of yesterday and this morning?" Inuyasha asked, one hand on this hilt of the Tetsusaiga as he sniffed the air and looked around them to check if the oni had sent out an advance guard against the intruders.

"I am polite to your friends for _your_ sake and Rin's, and because I respect the courage and loyalty I saw in them when we fought Naraku. I have no such feelings about the kuma," said Sesshomaru, likewise scanning the area for the bears as he unstrapped the oni's corpse from the dragon.

"I appreciate that."

"However, I shall _still_ be polite here, so follow my lead," Sesshomaru added.

"Uh-huh."

They could smell and sense the denizens of this region in the shadows behind the trees and in the caves, and saw flashes of glowing eyes through the undergrowth.

"If you are uncomfortable with my approach, you can head back into the air with Ah-Un while I deal with them," Sesshomaru said to him, as he dropped the oni's body to the ground.

"If you're expecting me to back out like a coward, you'd better think again. I'm here with you, and I've got your back, so don't try to get rid of me."

As the shadows in the undergrowth emerged, some on two legs and others on four, but every one of them seething with bear rage to see the two intruders standing over the corpse of one of their own, Sesshomaru ordered Ah-Un to take flight again and keep out of their way, while he and Inuyasha stood back to back, weapons still sheathed but hands ready to draw them in a fraction of a second.

Sesshomaru spoke clearly to the oni closing in on the spot where they stood: "We have come to ask if any of you know this kuma youkai, and what could have happened to him. I killed him this morning when he attacked my pack and refused to cease his assault despite being warned. The odours that rose from his body after I slew him suggested that he had been driven insane through sorcery. We are attempting to find the sorcerer and prevent him from doing further harm. Does anyone know where this oni might have encountered such a sorcerer?"

"So _you_ killed our brother," snarled one of the bear oni to Sesshomaru's right. It stood on two legs and its features appeared humanoid, but its massive paws and fur were pure animal-demon.

"I would not have done so unprovoked, and I am returning his body to you as an act of goodwill," Sesshomaru stated. "I only wish to know who could have reduced him to the state he was in when he attacked me."

"For all we know, it was _you_, and you are here for the rest of us!" the same demon growled, and flew at them.

Sesshomaru drew the Bakusaiga, but only used its hilt to counter the oni's attack, sending it flying back into the trees, bruised but otherwise unharmed.

"I don't think they'll see reason," Inuyasha muttered, untying the Tetsusaiga's scabbard so that he could wield the sword without unsheathing it.

"No, but try not to kill them unless you have no choice. We are not here to provoke them further."

"Huh. I think they're pretty much provoked already."

True enough, half the pack that had gathered charged at the dog demons, and the pair drove them back with hilts, scabbards and fists. The bear oni were not unskilled warriors, however, and their repeated charges succeeded in separating Sesshomaru and Inuyasha, resulting in their each being circled by a group of adversaries.

As Inuyasha fended off a frontal attack from two of the bears, another launched at him from behind. He knew it, and was ready to tackle it with a kick, but before he could do so, Sesshomaru unleashed his whip at it from where he was and sent it sprawling. That distraction allowed one of Sesshomaru's own circle of opponents to hurl a cluster of flying, needle-like claws in his direction, of which several lodged in his arm.

"Sesshomaru!" Inuyasha yelled in alarm as he saw the claws penetrate his brother's flesh. "I've got it under control! Focus on _your_ problem!"

Chastised by his younger brother, and justly so, the taiyoukai concentrated on his own group of adversaries, and drove them with his whip in Inuyasha's direction, opening a path that would allow him to edge closer to him. Seeing what he was up to, Inuyasha mirrored his tactics, forcing the bear oni towards Sesshomaru, then sending three of them flying with the Tetsusaiga's scabbard and clearing the way for him to take a good leap and stand beside his brother again.

"Don't you dare spring to _my_ defence at your own expense again, Sesshomaru," Inuyasha hissed under his breath, over his shoulder. "I will _not_ be your weakness in battle."

"Understood."

"I am your _partner_ in a fight, not another helpless pack member. I'm not Rin, all right?"

"Point taken," the taiyoukai said, plucking the bear claws from his arm and throwing them to the ground.

As they steeled themselves for a fresh mass assault, an authoritative voice boomed from the caves and froze the bear oni: "Step back, all of you."

The bears obeyed and fell back as a large oni emerged from one of the cave mouths and strode towards the dog demons.

"Sesshomaru – did I hear the hanyou say that name?" the bear leader asked, looming over them on two legs, speaking out of a grizzled muzzle whose black hairs were interspersed with brown and grey, and eyeing them from two ferocious orbs that glowed orange in the night.

"What's it to you if you did?" Inuyasha snarled. "We only came to ask questions, and here we are fighting off an entire pack of you while doing our best _not_ to kill any of you, in case that's escaped your notice. I'm losing my patience and I'll draw my sword very soon if this nonsense doesn't stop."

"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said quietly, cautioning him to be silent.

"Sesshomaru of the inu youkai," the bear leader said. "I have heard of you, and your father. I believe that one as powerful as you would have no reason to descend to underhanded trickery, so I take it that what you said about our clan-mate's insane charge on your pack this morning is true."

"It is," Sesshomaru said. "We have no motive for coming here other than to find out who could have driven your clan-mate to insanity. The state of his body suggests that he was held captive for a long time and poisoned by sorcery. We want to track down the perpetrator and stop him before he does this to more demons."

The bear leader considered his words for a few moments, then lowered himself onto all fours and summoned two of the other oni to his side. They conferred in lowered tones, in their own dialect, which Inuyasha did not understand.

After several minutes, the bear leader turned back to them and spoke: "This brother of ours has not been seen or heard of by any of our oni clans for three moons now. He was sent on a mission to the northern kuma clans five moons ago. He reached them, and remained in the north for two months, but after leaving them, he disappeared. We can only assume that he was taken captive by whomever you seek on his way back from the north."

"Have your clans heard of any demons that might be associating with sorcerers who use human child-like apparitions to do their work?"

"No," the leader said, after another quick conference with his group. "However, we ourselves saw an apparition in the shape of a human child in our territories some weeks ago, near the fresh graves of some of our warriors who fell in battle against the dragon youkai tribes on our borders. Some of us attacked it, but our claws went right through it – it was completely immaterial, like a spirit. Then it disappeared without a trace. We saw it again two days ago, when it behaved differently, coming up to some of us and seeming to sniff at us – but again, we could not touch it, and it vanished."

Sesshomaru and Inuyasha pricked up their ears at this news about the change in the apparition's behaviour, but did not know what to make of it at this juncture, so they set the information aside as Sesshomaru said to the oni: "We believe that is the apparition used by the sorcerer and demon who held your clan-mate. Do you know if he would have gone along the western or eastern coast to return to the south? That could narrow our search."

"Our clans use the eastern routes to travel between north and south," the bear leader said.

"The forest he attacked me in was close to the eastern coast," Sesshomaru said. "However, the scents of numerous forests on his body suggested to me that he might have been released a long way from there. Would you know if he might have had any other contacts or would have stopped anywhere else on his way back to the south – any place where he could have been when he was seized?"

The other oni looked at one another and shook their heads. "We have no other contacts we are friendly with between here and the north. If he kept to his route, he was likely to have been captured near the eastern coast."

"Very well, we shall concentrate our search in that area to begin with," he stated. "I regret that I was unable to subdue him without taking his life. If any of you remain dissatisfied with my account, we can settle the matter in one-to-one combat after I have dealt with the sorcerer and the demon we believe to be protecting him."

"No. The matter between us ends here. We are satisfied with your account, Sesshomaru of the inu youkai. You and your companion may safely leave."

He nodded to acknowledge the leader's words, and turned to go. Inuyasha, still wary of the bears, kept his face to them and his hand on the hilt of his sword as he moved away. Seeing his actions, the bear leader made a low, throaty sound that they could only assume was the equivalent of a chuckle.

"I keep my word, hanyou," the oni said. "I have said you could leave in safety, and I mean it. You needn't look at us that way. Who is he, Sesshomaru, this companion of yours who doesn't know when to lower his hackles?"

"If _my brother_ is wary," Sesshomaru said, placing a hand on Inuyasha's shoulder to steer him away from the bears, "it is because of his concern for me. He means no offence to you."

It was the first time Inuyasha had heard Sesshomaru freely acknowledge him – without contempt – to a third party as his brother, and he was surprised by how much pride he felt to hear those words. To avoid causing further embarrassment to him, he moved his hand away from the hilt of the Tetsusaiga.

The bear leader nodded, and the group of oni moved back towards the caves, leaving the way clear for the dog demons to leave. Sesshomaru summoned Ah-Un back down, and he and Inuyasha were on their way again. They flew on until Inuyasha judged, by the absence of bear scents from below, that they were beyond kuma oni territory, and said: "Bear claws have poison – we'd better see to those wounds of yours."

"I am healing as we speak. There is no need to worry about me."

"Oh, that's rich coming from you. You're the one who got hurt worrying about me when there was no need to. Now are you going to land or not? If you won't do it for you, how about doing it for me? I'm stiff and aching after flying all day and then having to fight a bunch of stinky bears."

"We will not stop here. I am unfamiliar with these territories, and I have no intention of exposing us to further unnecessary danger. If you are tired, you can sleep against my back."

"I don't need to sleep yet. I'm not such a wimp."

"Even if you do not need it, it will be good for you to rest."

"And if I fall off?"

"I won't let you," Sesshomaru replied, as he coiled his length of fur around Inuyasha's body and his own to keep the hanyou securely tethered to him.

_Mmm, nice and warm_, Inuyasha thought. This time, he boldly wrapped his arms around Sesshomaru's waist and rested his cheek against his back, using the roll of fur around his brother's right shoulder as a cushion between his face and the hard plates of armour. As he did, he felt the mokomoko tighten in a reassuring fashion about him, so he snuggled closer against Sesshomaru's back and slept as they flew north.


	11. Is the day so young?

Chapter XI: _Is the day so young?_

"Wake up." Sesshomaru's voice slipped into his dreams.

"Hmm?" Inuyasha mumbled and opened his eyes to see daylight, and to find that he was still resting against his brother's back. "Are we back at the village?" he asked sleepily, lifting his head and hoping that he hadn't drooled into Sesshomaru's fur.

"No. Let's stop here first. I had planned for the possibility of being away for three days, in case things did not go well with the kuma oni. We settled that last night, so we can spend a bit of time here. At least it will give the houshi and miko space to research the spells they could use on the apparition without our interference."

Inuyasha looked around and saw that the "here" Sesshomaru referred to was the spot by the spring pool he had taken him to on the night of the new moon.

"You like this place, don't you?" he asked, as the mokomoko uncurled from his body, and Sesshomaru dismounted from Ah-Un.

"It gives me the peace and quiet I regularly require. Naturally, I never bring Jaken here."

Inuyasha chortled. He jumped from Ah-Un's back and followed Sesshomaru to the shade of the trees, where his brother seated himself on the same rock he had sat on to watch over Inuyasha in his human state.

"Let me see where the bear got you," he said, standing before him, as Ah-Un ambled over to the pool and took a deep, long drink.

"It's healing well."

"Show me, anyway."

Sesshomaru unfastened his armour and shrugged his left shoulder out of its layers of clothing to expose five deep puncture wounds in the pale flesh of his finely muscled upper arm. The flesh was closing up, and the powers of his body had pushed out the oni poison, but Inuyasha could see how far in the claws must have sunk for the marks to still be visible in the morning, after an entire night.

"Don't do that again," he said. "I meant it when I told you I don't want to be your weakness in battle. If you get distracted by me once more, I'll kill you myself."

"A pointless act, if your original intention was to prevent harm to me," Sesshomaru said dryly.

"You know what I mean," Inuyasha grumbled.

"Strangely, I do. Now I must wash these bear smells off my clothing."

"What's the point? It's youkai silk. Doesn't it get itself clean after a bit?"

"Yes, but I have to put up with the smell until then, and I prefer not to."

Inuyasha sniffed him. "Most of the bear stench is on your haori and fur. Give them to me. I'll wash them. You _can_ detach your fur, can't you? I've never figured out how that whole giant dog transformation business goes without you ripping your kimono to shreds or dropping your mokomoko thingy, but hey, if it works for you, I'm not going to scratch my head over it too much."

"I can remove it, but I'm not having you drag it all over the ground between here and the pool. I'll do it myself."

"I'm going into the pool anyway. There's bear all over my fire rat robe, and if you can't stand the smell on yourself, you're not going to stand it on me either, so I'm getting clean. If you won't part with your precious fur, at least give me your haori. Come on, off with it."

The curious experience of being nagged by an Inuyasha who was cheerfully giving orders seemed to amuse Sesshomaru, who acquiesced, removing his upper outer garment with its red-dyed and embroidered shoulder and sleeves, and handing it to his brother.

"This dye won't wash off, will it?" Inuyasha asked.

"No. My clothes have been soaked before, obviously. The colour doesn't run."

"Good. I don't want to get beaten up for ruining your gorgeous wardrobe," Inuyasha said, as he headed for the pool. At the water's edge, he stopped to untie the Tetsusaiga and set it down on dry ground, saying over his shoulder at the same time: "By the way, if you're hoping I'll get naked again, you'll be disappointed. I'm going in fully dressed this time."

"I'm devastated," Sesshomaru said sarcastically.

As Inuyasha waded into the pool, he observed that the water flowed down from a hot spring in the rocks to his right to fill the large depression that formed the pool, then overflowed at the lowest point of the other end to create a stream that disappeared down a slope and through the forest to wherever it went. The light current and warmth worked the bear scents out of his robe and Sesshomaru's haori, and he ducked his head under too to wet his hair, though he had to shake the water out of his ears after that.

When the clothes smelt cleaner, he jumped out and hung the haori over a branch to let it drip dry in the warm morning air. He then walked back over to Sesshomaru and began removing his own suikan and its white underlayers.

"I thought you said you were remaining fully dressed this time," the taiyoukai remarked, raising an eyebrow by a fraction of a millimetre.

"Oh, I'll be putting these back on, don't worry," Inuyasha said breezily, as he stepped around the rock, stood behind Sesshomaru and started sponging down his hair and fur with his undershirt. "This should get some of the smells off, and I just have to wash the undershirt again after that. No point in both of us getting soaked, right?" He also took the liberty of slipping the layers of silk off his brother's left arm to see to the fast-healing skin over the wounds.

Sesshomaru took this unusual grooming service in his stride, but noted that the undershirt was the same one whose sleeve he had ripped off sixteen days ago. "Don't you have other hadajuban?" he asked.

"Nope. Not exactly drowning in spare clothing."

He took another sniff at Sesshomaru, found the bear odours satisfactorily reduced, and dipped into the pool once more to rinse his undershirt, then tossed that over a branch as well.

"I'm hungry," he announced as he pulled his sopping wet suikan over his body, but did not bother to tuck it back into his hakama, so that when he secured his Tetsusaiga to his hakama sash again, the hilt disappeared under the half-open suikan. "I smell rabbits. I'm going to catch a couple – and hunting them will help me dry off. Want any?"

"I don't need to eat right now."

"I don't think I've ever seen you eat at all. You _do_ eat, of course?"

"Yes, but I don't like rabbit."

"Myoga tells me our old man had a fondness for cows. That true?"

"He did consume a lot of cattle."

"So I suppose that's more to your taste. Raw, presumably?"

"Mostly." Sesshomaru still seemed amused by this chatty, slightly hyperactive take-charge style of Inuyasha's, and was going along with it.

"Well, it's rabbit or nothing today – I think your frequenting this place has scared off anything bigger and smarter than that within hunting distance. I'm off."

He leaped into the trees and was gone from sight in a trice, although Sesshomaru could still hear, smell and sense exactly where he was in the forest nearby, as he stalked and swooped down on bunnies that had strayed a mite too far from their burrows. He could also hear where Ah-Un had wandered off to, out of view but well within summoning distance, as the dragon moseyed along a trail, munching on leaves.

Before too long, Inuyasha was back, two freshly killed rabbits swinging by their ears from his right hand, and his fire rat top still hanging loose. Under the noon sun, on a stony patch of ground, he worked to start a small fire using dried leaves and twigs for tinder, sharp-edged stones to generate heat and a spark, and a small log to catch the flames. While waiting for the fire to grow, he skinned and gutted his prey with his claws.

When the fire looked decent enough, he skewered one rabbit on a branch and held it over the flames until it was cooked enough not to be too bloody. That done, he stepped away from the fire, went over to where Sesshomaru sat, and held out both the cooked and raw rabbits to him.

"Go on, have one. Even if you don't need to eat and don't like this stuff, it's probably good to get something down in case your next meal is a longer time in coming than expected."

"Something you know a lot about?" Sesshomaru asked, accepting the raw rabbit.

"Not for these many years, no," he replied, sitting on the ground in front of him and tearing a strip of meat off the bones with his fangs. "But it was sometimes hard catching my food when I was a lot younger and smaller, after Mama died and I was completely alone. I always managed, though. Obviously. Wouldn't be here otherwise."

It hung in the air between them as he chewed on half-cooked rabbit that he would never have gone hungry if his big brother had taken him under his wing, but Inuyasha thought they had said what needed to be said on that score thirteen days ago, so he changed the subject: "We don't make a very good team, do we? We were too easily separated last night."

"We are unaccustomed to working together," Sesshomaru said sensibly, before he sank his fangs into the raw rabbit. For such a predator, he dug in almost delicately, tearing off the meaty bits neatly and somehow managing not to drip blood over himself and his clothes.

They ate quietly for a few more minutes, and when they finished and tossed the bones onto the log that still burned several feet away, Inuyasha licked the stains off his fingers and commented: "We're supposed to be dogs, but the way we teamed up against those kuma, we might as well be cats. I'm too used to fighting alone, even when I have my friends around me, and you're worse."

Sesshomaru accepted the truth of that in silence, and they sat there facing each other, not speaking for a while, he from his rock and Inuyasha from the ground. Then Sesshomaru said: "I was proud to have you by my side last night."

Those words instantly brought a lump to Inuyasha's throat, but hell, no, he wasn't going to dissolve into tears again, so he swallowed hard but said lightly: "Well, you didn't embarrass me too much yourself."

His casual words were a poor screen for his deeper, instinctive response, and Sesshomaru saw right through them. "It means that much to you?" he asked seriously. "That I am proud of you, and acknowledge you as my brother?"

"You know it does," Inuyasha said. "Look, unless the idea of me bawling into your sleeve again turns you on, let's stop talking about this. Maybe I should just go off and stand behind that tree before I embarrass myself any further."

He stood up and turned to go, but Sesshomaru suddenly had a vise-like grip on the back hem of his suikan, preventing him from moving another step away. "You don't have to hide in a corner for that," the taiyoukai said.

"I'm starting to think you get a kick out of seeing me all weepy. I swear you're nearly as bad as Jakotsu."

"If you're referring to that undead psychopath who had the temerity to tell me I was not his type, I will have to take that as an insult."

"No shit – he said that to you?" Inuyasha asked in amusement, turning to face Sesshomaru.

The taiyoukai rose to his feet as he released his hold on the hem of the fire rat suikan, only to transfer his grip to his companion's left arm. "He did. But obviously, _you_ were much more his type. And I can see why," Sesshomaru said with an intensity that brought a small growl into his voice. Smearing rabbit blood into the hanyou's hair and clothing, he pulled him to himself so that Inuyasha's head came to rest on his left shoulder.

Inuyasha no longer felt inclined to dissolve into tears. Another conflict reared up within him as he realised they were crossing a line now. The flirting, infatuation and innuendo that had gone on for days were pushing them beyond the borders of the unfamiliar emotional territory he had been exploring to discover how close he could get to the only family he had left in this world, while trying to figure out exactly what it was he wanted, and if his undefined desires were the same as Sesshomaru's.

His brother's left hand was working into his hair, his right clutching the small of his back under his clothes, his breath warming his left ear, then in the next moment those bloodless lips were on his neck, fangs brushing the skin there, and suddenly, it was all too real for him – unnervingly so – although he thought that he would rather cut off his own arm than refuse the taiyoukai who held him now.

But Sesshomaru himself seemed to realise at the same time Inuyasha froze that he had gone further than they were both ready for. He stopped, relinquished his hold on him and drew back quickly, saying: "I'm sorry – I said only two days ago that we would work out what we were doing as we went along, but I've gone ten paces too far. You're just looking for the brother you never had before, and I'm making it up to you in all the wrong ways."

Inuyasha had lost too many people he loved not to feel his soul rattled by what seemed like another separation, another threat of impending loss, and he blurted out: "No – I was just taken by surprise, that's all, though I shouldn't have been – you haven't gone too far."

Staring into the burning golden eyes of a hue identical to his own, Inuyasha lifted his face to Sesshomaru's and kissed him on the mouth, then closed his eyes and slipped his hands round to the nape of his neck. But Sesshomaru gently eased him back, and shaking his head, said: "No, Inuyasha. That's not what I want from you. You're not a slave who has to cater to my whims. I said I wanted you to be strong and independent, and I meant that. You needn't pander to me for fear of losing the only brother you have. You won't lose me. I am still your brother, and I am still very proud of you, and I will protect you. But I won't ask you for more."

"You _could_ ask me for more. I could –"

"You could do what you think I want you to? You would try so hard to hold on to the only family you have that you would be willing to become anything for me, even if all you really want from me is to be your brother?"

Inuyasha could not reply.

Sesshomaru continued: "For pity's sake – if I merely wanted to possess you, do you imagine that I couldn't just push your face into the dirt and take you right here and now? Keep you weak and dependent on me just for my gratification? That is not what I want. You mean much more to me than that."

The look in Sesshomaru's eyes startled him. And he understood, once again, what it meant to be loved just for who and what he was – he recognised the look, because he had seen it in his mother's eyes, in Kagome's eyes, only here, it was fiercer, less gentle, and utterly uncompromising.

"Enough of this. Come here – let me hold you the way you would expect a brother to," Sesshomaru ordered, reaching for him and embracing him as Inuyasha had always imagined he should, except that now, he felt something was missing.

Then he released him and said: "It's time we got going. Put out that fire and get our clothes, if you don't mind. I'll get Ah-Un."

Inuyasha wanted to say something, anything, but he couldn't produce a single word that seemed appropriate, and Sesshomaru was striding into the forest after the dragon, so he turned to the fire and put it out with some earth and a few well-placed kicks, went to the pool and scooped some water up in his hands to splash over the log as a precaution, retrieved his brother's armour from the ground, and the haori and his own undershirt too, from the branches they hung from.

Sesshomaru reappeared, leading Ah-Un, and took his haori and armour from his brother. The haori was still damp, but he put it on anyway, as the flight and the heat of the afternoon sun would dry it off quickly. From Ah-Un's left saddlebag, he extracted something white – two neatly folded pieces of fabric, which he handed to Inuyasha.

"New undershirts for you. Please get rid of that ripped-up one – here, give it to me," he said, taking the torn old hadajuban away from him.

"Thank you," Inuyasha murmured, staring at the clothing in his hands and not knowing what else to say.

"Go on, put one on now."

So he removed his suikan and pulled on one of the undershirts, cut from a finer cloth than any he remembered wearing before. Over that he donned the nagajuban and his suikan, both of which were still damp. He secured all the ties, and tucked everything neatly into his hakama. He carefully slipped the other undershirt inside his clothes, right next to his skin, so that it wouldn't fall out.

Sesshomaru himself had been rearranging his outfit, complete with armour, into its usual ordered appearance. He looked Inuyasha up and down – but briskly this time, shorn of all the previous penetrating interest his once-over of two days ago had held, and stated: "Good. I don't want to return you to the village looking dishevelled – your friends would think I'd been beating you up."

They mounted Ah-Un, and Inuyasha no longer knew where to place his hands. He put them on Sesshomaru's shoulders half-heartedly, holding his breath, although what he really longed to do was to throw his arms around him again. But could he?

Sesshomaru seemed to read his mind, for he turned his head and said: "Inuyasha, you can hold me any way you like – I won't read all the wrong messages into it."

Inuyasha exhaled and slipped his arms round Sesshomaru's waist in relief, pressing his face into the fur as he had before, and hoping that with the wind roaring past them as the dragon flew, that Sesshomaru wouldn't be able to tell he was crying again.


	12. There's hope in't yet

Chapter XII: _There's hope in't yet_

It was purely by chance that Jaken came to be of use to Miroku and Kaede. He had been so disheartened at being left by his lord in the company of humans and the despised kitsune that he had not only been of no help at first, but an unsightly distraction too as he hunched in a corner of the hut, muttering to himself things that would surely have been found to be extremely rude had the others been able to make the words out.

It was only when Shippo startled him with a childish fox trick, and he very nearly set fire to the hut by half-activating the staff of two heads, that Miroku thought of something, and called his wife aside.

"Sango, do you remember what Kagome told us long ago about how Sesshomaru first gained access to his father's grave through the black pearl from Inuyasha's eye?" he asked.

"Yes, I think so," Sango murmured, trying to recall what their time-travelling friend had said to them about the incident. "Jaken had a lot to do with it – I remember that for sure, because the deceit behind that whole episode didn't sound at all like Sesshomaru's style.

"And did she not say that it was the kappa's staff which broke the seal on the pearl? That very staff propping up Ugly-sama right now?"

"I think she did."

"Ah-ha. That gives me an idea. Thank you, my love."

Since the day Sesshomaru had taken Rin and Shippo out, Miroku and Kaede had been working on adapting existing spells and sutras that could capture and hold shikigami that were controlled by other people. As they did not know to what degree the apparition they were concerned with differed from shikigami, they considered several adaptations to the spells, and also worked on new ones altogether. Kaede had the experience, while Miroku had the stronger spiritual powers, and between them, they had hoped that they would come up with something usable.

Then Sesshomaru had left Jaken with them, and just before he and Inuyasha got onto the dragon's back, Miroku had had the presence of mind to run after them into the forest and ask if he could see the kuma oni's corpse. "I know I do not have your superior sense of smell, Sesshomaru-sama, or that of Inuyasha's, but I may be able to detect something off the corpse that could give me useful information."

Miroku had examined the body, and underneath the overpowering scents of forest odours and animal youkai had been a hint of the traces of magic, which he did not smell so much as he sensed. There was nothing holy or pure about that magic. It was dark, although it did not have the same brand of evil that Naraku had given off in waves – it was foulness of an equal but different sort.

"Thank you," the monk had said. "If only we were able to revive this oni, we could get answers from him."

"You are thinking of Tenseiga," Sesshomaru had acknowledged. "I considered that. However, Tenseiga can only revive a body but not a mind that has already gone mad. If it returned him to life, he would only attack us all over again, and I would have to kill him once more. Besides, the sword does not work in all cases, for its own reasons."

As he had walked away from the forest back to the village, Miroku had known that the taiyoukai had been thinking of Kagura with that last comment.

Now, as the monk recollected the magical aura he had detected, and remembered the story about the staff of two heads and the black pearl, he approached the kappa squatting in a corner like a toad. "Jaken-sama, the staff you hold has the power to break seals, am I right?"

"What if it does?" the kappa croaked defensively.

"Those magical auras from the oni's wounds gave me a sense that they were pulling towards something, as if they would naturally seek to be drawn back to a particular source when released – not through the air or land, but through magical portals. It makes me wonder if the sorcerer uses a kind of binding power between himself and the apparition, or between himself and the emotions collected, so that he can easily pull the apparition and the essences back to him."

"So?" the kappa blinked resentfully up at him.

"If your staff could impart some of its seal-breaking powers to our sutras, perhaps we will have an added ingredient that could break the bond between the apparition and the sorcerer, making it more possible for us to detain it."

"How would I know how to impart such a power to your sutras?"

"I am sure we can create a spell that can do the trick."

"And how do I know this isn't just a _trick_ to steal all the power away from my staff?" Jaken demanded, clutching his prop protectively.

"You're just going to have to trust me on that, Jaken-sama," Miroku said politely.

"And if I don't?"

He sighed theatrically. "I shall have to respect your decision, of course. But I wonder what Sesshomaru-sama would say if we failed to find a solution, and he discovered that you refused to cooperate with us."

The kappa turned a paler shade of green and gulped, and Miroku knew that they were about to get somewhere fast.

True enough, by that evening, they had found a way to infuse some seal-breaking powers from the staff into the sutra-based spells they had crafted.

"It's not quite perfect, houshi-sama, but I think we may be able to do something with this," Kaede said to the monk.

"Yes, I think we might," Miroku agreed. "I don't know that it will work strongly on an apparition of this sort, but it may just be able to hold it for a while. It would work much better on shikigami, actually, as those are far more physically substantial than this being seems to be."

Sango looked relieved to hear that they were done, as she had been seeing to the preparation of their meals for two days, while her monk-husband and Kaede were occupied, and cooking was not her forte. That job had always been much better done, with far more palatable results, by Kagome or Kaede.

"Does that mean you can both take a break now?" she asked.

"Yes, and I know what I'd love to do during that break," Miroku murmured, gazing longingly at his wife's firm, supple body.

Jaken groaned, Kaede huffed, Shippo gagged and Rin giggled, as Sango glared at her husband and marched back to the cooking pot.

:

:

:

When Sesshomaru and Inuyasha returned to the village the day after the staff of heads had proven useful at last, Miroku and Kaede had been pleased to report on their progress with the spells.

"We can't be sure that it will work as well as we would like it to, but I think this is as close as we are going to get with the resources and time we've had," Miroku said.

"Excellent," Sesshomaru remarked crisply. "I hope that someone will now be able to trap this thing."

Inuyasha, however, appeared distracted and spoke little. It took just one glance and a few minutes' further observation for Miroku to know that something had happened between the brothers. He sensed that it was nothing particularly bad, but not particularly good either. Inuyasha looked as if he felt guilty, somehow, and while Sesshomaru had never had a face that anyone could easily scrutinise, simply by comparing the similarity of the expressions in their eyes, Miroku guessed that the taiyoukai too was troubled by a feeling of guilt.

It was not the kind of pleasurable guilt he often saw in two people who were sharing a delicious secret. In this case, it was as if each felt that he had wronged the other in some way, and Miroku's mind was in knots trying to imagine what could have happened to produce such a result. He did, however, spare enough of his brain for the present to remember to mention the kappa's contribution: "Jaken-sama was of great help to us in making the spells stronger."

"Oh?" Sesshomaru asked, casting a somewhat doubtful sideway glance at the kappa, who had brightened so much since his lord and master had returned, that he looked as if he would burst into green flames if he lit up any further. "As you have made good progress, I shall leave with Jaken now. I will continue my investigations along the eastern coast, and return in a few days. If anything urgent occurs before then, Inuyasha should be able to track me down."

Given permission to leave at last, Jaken almost tripped over his own feet in his haste to get out of the hut while Sesshomaru spoke briefly to Rin before heading for the exit. Inuyasha stood near the door, but said nothing, and could barely look for long at Sesshomaru. His brother paused near him, as if he wished to speak, but he did not. Of all the people in the hut, only Miroku observed the minuscule movement of Sesshomaru's left hand towards Inuyasha, as if he had been about to reach out and touch him, but remembered himself just in time, before his fingers were able to do more than twitch in the hanyou's direction.

Then he stepped out through the doorway, and was gone.

Once their little group was left to itself again, Shippo grew relaxed enough to hop up onto Inuyasha's shoulder and ask excitedly: "So what were the kuma oni like?"

"Big, mean, smelly," Inuyasha answered, looking around at his friends and hoping that his face and tone of voice were communicating to them that he was fine, that he was happy to see them, that everything was _perfect_, and –

"Did you fight them?"

"Yeah."

When Shippo took a sniff at Inuyasha, Miroku immediately knew what was coming, and he was by their side in a second, lifting the kitsune off the hanyou even as the child fox demon began to utter the words: "Hey, you really smell of –"

"Shippo, Inuyasha is obviously exhausted from the long flight to the south and back, and having to fight the kuma oni as well. Why don't we let him alone so he can rest?" Miroku suggested.

Inuyasha gave him a half-grateful, half-suspicious look, wondering just how much the monk knew, but seizing that opportunity anyway to pat Shippo quickly on the head and leave the hut.

Shippo watched him go and protested: "I was going to say that he –" But the monk shushed him and carried him out of the hut, in a different direction from the way Inuyasha had gone. Once outside, and far away enough not to be heard by the female humans still indoors, Shippo continued: "I was going to say that he really smelt of Sesshomaru. He did too when we first got back from your village, but he said they'd been fighting. Now Sesshomaru's scent is even stronger – and it's _all over_ him – could they have fought again?"

"Uh, no, Shippo, I don't think they fought again. It must be… all that flying – you do have to sit quite close on those beasts, as I'm sure you know. I always used to press right up against Sango on Kirara."

"I suppose."

_Oh dear heavens,_ Miroku thought to himself, even as he felt relieved that Shippo seemed to be buying his explanation. _It can't have gone that far already, can it? Could they have – was that why – the guilty looks… no, not that, it wasn't _that_ kind of guilt, it must be something else..._

His thoughts were interrupted by Sango appearing outdoors and giving him a querying look.

"Go on and play with Rin until dinner time, Shippo," Miroku told the fox-child. "And leave Inuyasha alone until he's ready to come back indoors."

"What is going on, Miroku?" Sango asked, after Shippo left.

"I honestly don't know, my dear."

"Come on."

"No, I really mean that I don't know. I have my suspicions, but I have no proof, and frankly, I'm baffled."

"Baffled about what?" she asked, more puzzled than before.

"I suspect that our dog demon friends have been bonding with each other like they never have before, but I don't know how far it's gone, and I truly do not know what just happened to make them both look so uncomfortable in each other's presence."

Sango's eyes widened. "Are you suggesting what I think you're suggesting?"

"Sango," Miroku said, massaging his temples, for he truly was starting a headache after all his work on the spells and contorting his imagination into more twists than were to be found in Sanskrit script. "I no longer know _what_ I am suggesting."

She reached out in concern and began massaging the back of his neck, to help relieve the stress. "All right, all right – you've been working too hard and thinking too much. Time to stop and get some proper rest."

"Hmm… you know what would really help me relax?" he asked, turning to gaze into her eyes.

"Miroku, you're impossible," she said, as she felt his hand glide down her back towards her bottom.

"That's why you love me, right?"

:

:

:

Inuyasha walked away from the village in the direction of the well – not because he planned to jump into it and mope for another few weeks or anything like that, but because the area around it was a good, quiet spot for him to be alone and hear himself think.

His head was ringing with thoughts of Sesshomaru, and he could barely end one idea before he jumped to another, unable to sort through the tangle of images and scents and sensations that piled one upon the other into his skull. Thinking deeply and with clarity about things that confused him had never been his strength – he preferred to just pick up his sword and swing it about to let it do the talking – but as there was no one around he could reasonably take a swing at now, he simply had to get down to thinking.

When he reached the well, he leaned on the timber, peered into its depths, and sighed: "Hey, Kagome, if you're over there and listening, you'll never believe what's been going on with me and Sesshomaru. Yeah, you heard me – Sesshomaru. I know – you're gonna kill me, right? First I can't decide between you and Kikyo, and now I'm kissing my brother once your back is turned…. ohhh, Kagome, I don't know what to do."

With a groan, he turned about so his back was to the well casing, and sank down till he was sitting on the ground, leaning against the timber. He deliberately banged the back of his head against the wood once, as if that would help knock all the emotions and thoughts into perfect order in his head. But then he calmed himself to try and process what he had felt, what he had done, what he had felt Sesshomaru feel, and everything else crowding into his mind.

The very first thought that he attempted to process, however, made him bang his head on the timber again, because he was asking himself why the hell he had tensed up like that when Sesshomaru grabbed him. "I'm an idiot!" he muttered to himself. "What's wrong with me? Why didn't I just… argh!"

He kept going over it again and again: the hand on the bare skin of his back pulling him so close that his belly was pressed against the growing hardness he could feel through Sesshomaru's silk hakama; the hand in his hair that seemed ready at any second to pull his head back and expose his throat, make his lips accessible; the hot breath against his ear and then his neck. Sesshomaru had actually been breathing hard – he who never so much as raised his heart rate in the most exacting battles – he had breathed hard and fast and his heartbeat had sped up when he held Inuyasha. Sesshomaru had all but panted for _him_, but he had frozen up. Why couldn't he have just melted into him, gone with the flow, instead of reacting as he had? Or rather, so patently _not_ reacting that even someone with the sensitivity of a corpse would have noticed that he wasn't getting into it?

It was his fault. It _had_ to be his fault. He had flirted with Sesshomaru, or at least allowed Sesshomaru to flirt with him – all because it warmed him inside to have a loving, caring sibling after all these years – until he had made himself quite besotted. His infatuation must have communicated itself to his brother – who had for the longest time never considered him a brother, only as a worthless younger male who deserved nothing until the night he had literally picked him up – and he must have perceived Inuyasha's obvious infatuation as permission to make a move on him.

All that did not trouble him even half as much as what had happened after he froze, when Sesshomaru had not only _not_ been angry, and _not_ lashed out at him for the unspoken rejection, but instead blamed himself, and with heartbreaking magnanimity assured him of his continued protection and love.

He should have just gone along with it. Would it have been so difficult? Well, it would have been a betrayal and deception in that he would only have been doing what Sesshomaru wanted, rather than what they both wanted, wouldn't it? Or would it?

Would it, really?

Another set of emotions poured into his head for analysis as he remembered a whole bunch of other things: his knee-weakening gut response to the intimate look Sesshomaru had shot him two days ago in the village; his instinct to get as physically close to Sesshomaru as possible, not just emotionally close; how much he had liked feeling Sesshomaru's tongue on his wrist and face after he had kicked his butt all over this very spot he was in right now.

Yes, he had been pretty woozy through all that licking. But he had been pretty woozy as well ages ago when old Totosai had flicked out his insanely long tongue and covered his face from chin to forehead in saliva as a salve for the injuries he had sustained after Tetsusaiga had taken the powers of the Dakki blade, and he had certainly not liked that one bit. He had _so_ not liked it that he had stamped Totosai into the ground, calling him a sick old demon, even though the saliva-salve had in fact worked.

Then there was that vivid image Sesshomaru had used to emphasise what he _wouldn't_ do – push his face into the dirt and take him right there by the spring. Oh kami, but if he was honest with himself, he had to admit he'd actually felt a bit aroused by the idea of it, if the throb from inside his own hakama was anything to go by. Completely unlike the sick feeling of disgust he'd had crawling over his skin while Jakotsu talked dirty to him whenever they encountered each other, right up until Inuyasha got him good and proper with the wind scar. Sesshomaru's words hadn't made his skin crawl. Rather the opposite.

So what was with his frigid response? Was it the thought of the act of sex that bothered him? Granted, he had no real experience to speak of with males or females (hugging Kikyo and Kagome hardly counted), save for some self-groping on nights when no one was around to see, but that didn't feel like the problem here. Was it some strong revulsion he felt against incest? Perhaps, but not necessarily – in those few moments, he had not thought of Sesshomaru as his brother but as a terrifyingly beautiful, very powerful youkai whose hands were all over him. Besides, a good number of full youkai were blasé about incest – something about their blood being too pure for them to be concerned about the result of sexual relations between close relatives – and he being half-youkai, well, perhaps some of that had rubbed off on him? Anyway, between two males, it was not as if there were going to be any offspring whose mental capacities one would need to worry about.

Was it his love for Kagome that stopped him from responding to another's advances? It couldn't be, not when he had been quite comfortable thinking of both her and Sesshomaru. He didn't think Kagome would really feel betrayed by this; he had a suspicion she would be rather intrigued. Hey, maybe she wouldn't mind a bit of Sesshomaru herself – maybe they could all… Aaaarrgh! No! What was he thinking? Had he just contemplated offering the girl he loved – his intended mate – to his brother as an alternative lover?

He jumped to his feet and called into the well in a panic: "Kagome, you did _not_ hear what I just thought, okay? You did _not_ hear that or sense that!"

What on earth made him think that Kagome wouldn't mind sharing him with another lover – or _being shared with_ another partner – after putting up with his vacillations between herself and Kikyo for so long? But maybe as Sesshomaru was male, and his brother, she wouldn't regard him as direct competition…?

"Oh, no, no, no!" he yelled into the well again. "Who am I kidding? You'd kill me! You'd sit me till we had a hole in the ground so big we'd all tumble straight into hell!"

He sat down again on the grass and tried to still his emotions, but unbidden into his head came the memory of that growl in Sesshomaru's voice as he'd taken hold of him, the hoarseness with which he'd spoken after he pulled back from him. He realised now that he wanted to hear that growl again, the sound of his voice thick with desire. He didn't need Sesshomaru to be _only_ his brother, did he? Maybe the relationship they were forging had space for more than that.

So perhaps he had frozen for nothing, after all – over what he thought he did not want when he probably did want it. And maybe he was also getting all worked up over Kagome's possible reaction for nothing too. He wouldn't know how she would take it until he spoke to her about it, right? If she ever came back, that was.

Clearer-headed and more collected now, Inuyasha got back to his feet and leaned his elbows on the well-edge. He took a deep breath and spoke into the well again, a little nervously but with reasonable steadiness in his voice this time: "Okay, let me try that again, Kagome – everything you might have just heard me say and think – how's it grab you?"


	13. Like a guilty thing

Chapter XIII: _Like a guilty thing_

_One does not make up for two hundred years of treating one's brother like vermin by making sexual advances to him,_ Sesshomaru thought as he sat in the middle of a forest that night, rebuking himself with the sternest tones in the coldest voice he could muster in his head.

His pack was resting in the woods, ostensibly to allow Ah-Un to recover from the flight to the south and back, and for Jaken to settle his nerves after tolerating the humans for a day and a half. But once he caught the scent of his brother's tears on his fur, he knew that he too was in need of stillness and time to think.

About Inuyasha. And his own stupidity.

It was his fault. Inuyasha was a child compared with himself, a child who simply wanted the family he had never had. But he, Sesshomaru, had betrayed him in the worst way by offering him what he longed for, before foolishly rocking the delicate balance of their new relationship by groping him.

He would never show it, but it shook him to think that the lad had actually offered himself to him for fear of losing him, believing that the brother who was being kind to him for the first time in his life would abandon him if he didn't do what he wanted.

He could still feel the kiss Inuyasha had planted on his lips, uncertainly, his hands reaching round to the back of Sesshomaru's neck as he prepared to deepen the contact before he stopped him. He had not wanted to stop him – he'd wanted to taste those lips, plunge his tongue into his mouth – but he had stopped him anyway. He'd had to, if he was to retain any self-respect, and prevent Inuyasha from surrendering body and soul to someone he only loved as a brother. That would lead to guilt and disgust, and he could not accept the thought of the boy looking at him through eyes that held only a contempt born of self-loathing.

He wanted him to be what he was at his best: brash, brave and wild, and he would move heaven and earth to prevent the hanyou from deteriorating into the plaything of a demon like himself, with no life left in his eyes, merely a physical shell driven by someone else's lust.

It had been quite a journey, Sesshomaru reflected, from decades of wanting to kill the detested half-blood brat, to coming to terms with his existence and grudgingly acknowledging his courage and strength, to feeling responsible for his safety on the night of the new moon, then finding himself catching his breath as he registered for the first time later that night, and the morning after, just how beautiful this creature before him was.

Not merely beautiful, but adorable too, and a worthy companion.

Sesshomaru had certainly found other creatures pleasing to his senses before. He had had females long ago, when he deemed it practical to learn all that was necessary about various youkai of the other sex who might some day prove useful as mates and bearers of his offspring. He had also considered certain males attractive in the past, but as none could serve any purpose in his plans, he had paid them no attention.

Although _that_ Sesshomaru had been a being who denied himself nothing he wanted, he had also been a ruthless thing who would never indulge in what would weaken him. If he ever wanted something that would not further his ambitions, he would simply, through sheer force of his cold will, cease to want it.

After those early explorations had taught him all he needed to know, he had decided that copulation and love would not be worth his time until he wished to take a mate – and even then, love might not be necessary. He could not recall anyone whom he considered worth so much as a second look for hundreds of years, until he set eyes on Kagura.

By then, Rin had cracked open his heart with her trusting, childish ways, but it still surprised him to discover that he was capable of finding Kagura interesting for her spunky character masking a chasm of pain, her driving desire to get away from Naraku, her manipulative nature paired with a peculiar compassion, and perhaps most of all, for her interest in him. He had not been able to save her, and did not know if they would have formed any deeper connection had she survived, but it was futile to dwell on someone he could not resurrect.

Inuyasha, however, was very much in the world of the living, and there was time to remedy what he had impulsively damaged. He wished he did not have to. His hanyou half-brother had in sixteen days turned his emotions upside-down, drawing him into a world in which he found himself smiling, talking as he had never talked before, working with humans, and unable to keep his hands off the lad, and he wanted it to continue.

But that was out of the question. He could not either lose or destroy Inuyasha now, so he had to keep him, and the best way to keep him was to simply be to him the brother he had never been.

Could he exercise that much self-control? He remembered initially going to the well with only the intention of beating some sense into Inuyasha for pining uselessly after his lost miko, but finding himself thinking instead: _Could you not live for me as well as for her?_

He thought of what he had been charmed by: Inuyasha's sudden self-consciousness as he realised Sesshomaru was looking at him naked in the pool; his protective playfulness with Rin and Shippo; his nurturing instincts with the children and himself, feeding them pears and offering him rabbits; his wiping down his hair and fur; his snarls as they battled the bear youkai; that lovable, flustered air as he tried to figure out what Sesshomaru wanted from him.

It would be a kind of hell to resist all that and just watch over him, hands-off. He had in fact believed that he would be able to wait, and proceed softly, give himself time to be sure about what he wanted, time to observe his responses to him – and that had all been slashed to ribbons in one unthinking moment when Inuyasha seemed so irresistible that he had just grabbed him. And felt him freeze.

He should have waited. He should have kept his hands to himself. Too late now. Perhaps another two hundred years of discipline and patience would recover the situation, rebuild the trust, stop his heart from feeling as if it would burst. Bokusen'o the old tree demon, whose branches had given Tetsusaiga and Tenseiga their scabbards, had been wise and knowledgeable enough to tell him of his "blood of ice" which meant he never lost control of himself in battle; but that ancient piece of flora had obviously not frolicked much with forest nymphs in the last millennium, or he would have taken care to mention that all the taiyoukai iciness in the world didn't count for much when it came to love.

It served him right, truly, for having been so cruel to Inuyasha for so long. This would be his punishment – to look upon and protect what he could not touch, not in the way he yearned to.

The next time they met, he would show him how things would be from now on, what life would be like with a normal, responsible demon brother who wasn't going to jump his bones at every opportunity.

He had mitigated two hundred years of error with sixteen days of tenderness, but then compounded them by one moment of madness. Possibly another few centuries of penance were to be his lot. But he would prove himself, over time.

All he needed was time.

:

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:

"I don't believe it," Inuyasha muttered.

He had first heard shouts and cries from the corner of the village near the fishing pond while resting in a large sugi tree the morning after Sesshomaru had left, and leaped over to find out what was going on. And he had barely been able to believe his eyes when he saw the very apparition that so many others had already spotted in this region, and which he had not set eyes on until now.

"Hanyou!" the man who took charge of breeding the fish called out to him when he spotted him. "Where's Kaede-sama? And the houshi? We need them quickly!"

"They're back at Kaede's hut!" Inuyasha told him, placing himself between the apparition and the villagers. "Someone go and get them! I'll keep an eye on this thing!"

Inuyasha stared at the weird-looking being, an artificial creature made to look like a large-eyed, long-lashed child with peculiarly androgynous facial features, black hair tied back in a simple tail, and whose dressing – undoubtedly as insubstantial as itself – was crafted as a combination of a plain black hakama that came halfway up the child's shins, and a kind of short golden yukata-cum-haori which hovered at mid-thigh, if something so ethereal could be considered to have thighs. Its feet were unshod, and it held a vessel in its right hand.

Shippo, who had been up in the tree with Inuyasha, whispered to him in a trembling voice: "That's the one we saw at Sango's village! It looks even clearer in daylight than it did that night… ah… Inuyasha, it's coming towards us…."

It was. With surprising speed, the apparition glided over even as Shippo was speaking, and came very close to them. Shippo, quaking, shrank away, but it ignored him after a single investigatory sniff and turned its attention to Inuyasha. It took a sniff, then another, and moved another few inches towards him.

Inuyasha took a step backwards, not wanting the thing to touch him, despite all that he had heard about its insubstantiality. But it was taking an interest in him, and him alone, and that was when he realised that he could draw it away from the frightened villagers, whom he could hear a good distance behind him, screaming about ghosts and spirits.

"Shippo, maybe I can lead this damned thing back to Kaede's hut," he murmured. "It seems to be following me, for some weird reason."

"Uhhhh…." was the only sound Shippo managed to produce in response as he backed further away.

What else Shippo intended to utter, Inuyasha did not know, because something completely unexpected happened right then: the apparition spoke, in words that were very soft, but which fell like a thunderbolt on the half-demon and the kitsune: "Hanyou, my master can open the well for you." Its speech was whispery, wavery and uncertain, strangely accented, as if it were a thing trained to mimic sentences without knowing what they meant, but what it had said was clear enough.

_What? How did it know about the well? How did its master know about the well? What was going on? No one who had ever seen it had mentioned it speaking, so why was it speaking to him, of all beings?_

The questions whirled in the sudden maelstrom within Inuyasha's head, but he was gripped by what it had said. "Who is your master? What does he know about the well? What do you mean he can open it for me?" he demanded.

Again the whispery voice came: "He can open the well for you." And the apparition sped off through the village in the direction of the well, causing the villagers to scatter in a panic as it moved towards them.

There wouldn't be time to get Miroku here before it was gone, Inuyasha realised. Sprinting after the apparition, he shouted back to Shippo: "Tell Miroku it's going to the well! I'm going after it!"

"Inuyasha!" Shippo screamed. "Don't go! Something's wrong! It can't open the well! It's a trap!"

"I know, you idiot! What do you think I am? Stupid? I'm just keeping an eye on it!" Inuyasha growled back before jumping through the air after the thing that was floating swiftly away. Good thing he was the one chasing it, he told himself, because it was moving so swiftly that none of the villagers, or possibly even Shippo, would have been able to keep up with it. _But how in all the hells of the netherworld does it know about me or the well?_

He raced after it to the well, where it stopped and turned to face him. Inuyasha landed on the grass several feet away from it, and cautiously approached the well, into which he took a tentative peek.

"How do you know about this well? How does your master know about it? Have you been messing around with it? What did you do to it?" he questioned.

But all the apparition would whisper was: "My master says he can open the well for you."

"_This_ well?" Inuyasha demanded angrily. "What does he know about this well?"

Again, the same refrain: "My master can open the well for you."

It was indeed as if it had been taught to say certain things without comprehending them, or being able to respond to another's inquiries.

"My master says you… must go… in…" it said, slowly and unrhythmically.

"Whaaat? You don't think I'm falling for that!" Inuyasha snapped angrily. "What's he done to the well? Are you able to answer my questions?"

"Go in," the apparition whispered.

"Absolutely not," he growled. But out of curiosity, he peered into the well. And something did feel different about it – there was a feeling of crackling energy rising from its depths, as if the portal might be back in operation. It felt odd, however, and something wasn't right, and he was as sure as hell not jumping in.

Although… what if the apparition's master had somehow opened the portal, and had gone over, and Kagome was in danger? What if something bad was happening to her right now?

Inuyasha leaned over the well casing to take a good look at the bottom of the well and take a deep sniff, and he felt something all right, smelt that something had been done to it, but he had no idea what.

That was when he felt a cold force grip his ankles with alarming strength, and with a surprising swiftness, he was tipped headfirst into the well.

_I thought that accursed thing couldn't touch us! Isn't it supposed to be insubstantial!?_ were the thoughts that sped through his mind as he fell… and kept falling… and something was very wrong, because this did not feel like the portal that had always led him to Kagome… and he faintly heard Miroku and Shippo and Sango screaming his name from a distance as he fell through….

:

:

:

They were too late. Miroku, Sango and Shippo raced up to the clearing, Kaede limping far behind them, only in time to see a flash of red hakama as Inuyasha's legs and bare feet disappeared down the well. The apparition – that thing – had been standing behind him, but from where they were, with the well between them, they could not tell if Inuyasha had jumped (unlikely, as he had always leaped in feet-first), or been tipped over – but how on earth could an insubstantial creature touch him to do that?

Too late to stop Inuyasha from falling now, but Miroku could still do something about the apparition. Whipping out the sutras he and Kaede had prepared, he hurled them like darts towards the apparition even as Inuyasha was falling, and they stuck on the child-like being, held it in place and dispersed into a barrier around it, from which Miroku hoped it would not be able to escape.

"Inuyasha!" he yelled as he raced up to the well and stared into it. His human eyes could not see the very bottom of it, but Shippo came up next and hopped onto the casing.

"He's not there!" the kitsune cried. "There's nothing there – could he have gone to Kagome's time?"

"Inuyasha!" Sango screamed into the well's depths, as if her voice could pull him back. "There's no way this could lead to Kagome's time – something's wrong!"

She rounded on the apparition, standing there trapped in the barrier, and demanded of it: "What did your master do to the well? Where is our friend?"

But the child-thing looked at her blankly, curiously, and asked: "Friend….?"

Kaede finally reached them, leaning on her walking stick and gasping for air, and heard what they had to say. She asked the apparition: "Where did the hanyou go?"

"In… the well," it replied.

"Where does the well lead?"

"What is… lead?" it asked innocently.

"Did your master put a spell on the well?"

"My master says he can open the well."

Kaede shook her head at the others. "It was obviously instructed to memorise certain words to say to Inuyasha, but I doubt that it knows much more."

"How were we able to trap it, anyway?" Miroku asked, his voice unsteady with fear and worry over where Inuyasha had gone. "I didn't really think the spell would work this effectively."

"Houshi-sama," Kaede said calmly. "Look at the apparition. Do you not see that it has become much more substantial than it seemed to be when we last saw it? It appears to have taken on a more solid form. If, as you say, Inuyasha may have been pushed into the well, then the master of this thing may have placed more spells on it to make it more physically solid so that it would be able to do just that. And our spells, as we agreed, would have worked better on more substantial beings. Well, it has now become more substantial, and we have it."

"But how can we question it when it doesn't seem to know how to answer our questions?" Sango asked in distress, clutching the well casing. "How will it tell us where Inuyasha is?"

"All we can do is try, and be patient," the miko replied.

"We can't even reach Sesshomaru now, because Inuyasha was the only one of us who might have been able to track him by scent and be fast enough to get to him," Miroku murmured.

Kaede sighed. "At least we have the apparition. Sesshomaru said he would return in a few days. Let us hope we can hold it until then. We still have enough sutras prepared to keep renewing the barrier for some time."

They had the apparition indeed, but it did not seem as if it would be able to give them the answers they needed. It was trapped here, but Inuyasha was gone.


	14. Through the fog and filthy air

Chapter XIV: _Through the fog and filthy air_

"I see that you didn't come willingly," someone said, from somewhere behind him. "If you had, you wouldn't have injured yourself quite so badly on the way in."

It was a man's soft voice, almost gentle in its quality, but the sound of it made him ill. It exacerbated the nausea he felt, and worsened the pain in his head from having cracked it hard against the ground upon which he now lay, face-down. He had stretched his hands out as he fell through the well, and they should have broken his fall, but somehow he had still hit his head. He had probably blacked out somewhere along the way, an unusual thing for him.

It was a stone floor. In a dark room – no, a cave. Or a dungeon, Inuyasha thought, as he tried to raise his head. The dizziness and pain made it hard to move or focus his eyes, but he sensed that he was in an underground area of some sort, carved out by the work of nature or tools. The stone beneath him was too cold, and the air too dank, for them to be above ground.

"You're very strong." The voice held a note of surprise. "You really shouldn't be moving _at all_ yet, after what you've just been through."

The air was ripe with the odours of herbs and brews, but it smelt nothing like Kaede's hut. It reeked of sorcery and blood and corruption, and underneath all that was the scent of a human.

Inuyasha tried to lift himself off the ground and face the person who was speaking to him, but he only managed to turn onto his side and crane his neck slightly as he lay there, to see a man standing several feet behind him in the cave or dungeon or whatever the devil this place was. He himself was in a smaller niche within the larger cave, and the human was separated from him by a wall of pure magical energy that he could see through easily, but which he could tell was pulsing with power-sapping force. He felt for Tetsusaiga at his hip and found it, but as he grasped the hilt, the man spoke again.

"Don't bother with your sword. You are in a cell imbued with spells that suppress your half-demon strength. You have no powers that can transform that sword into its true form – yes, I can tell it's a demon blade. It won't respond to you while you're in there."

Inuyasha figured the man was speaking the truth, but he had to try, although he knew as he painstakingly drew Tetsusaiga inch by slow inch from its scabbard that even if the fang flared to life, it would be pointless as he couldn't stand up to wield it in his own defence. When he finally dragged the blade free of its sheath, it clinked against the stone, thin and unawakened and of no help to him at this time.

"I told you so." The voice sounded smug.

He struggled to focus his eyes on the man and succeeded in making out, for a few seconds before his vision swam again, that he was of average build and height, perhaps forty years old or so, wearing robes that could have been cut for a scholar from the western regions, or perhaps for a priest, except that they seemed to be of a fine material with a sheen to it. He had a well-formed, intelligent face, with a pair of dark eyes that looked keenly and objectively at him.

When he could no longer focus his vision, Inuyasha continued examining the scents his nose was picking up – very poorly, however – and thought that behind all the smells of herbs and brews and humanity, he could detect the strong youki of a demon lingering about the man. This had to be the sorcerer or warlock or magician they had been looking for, and the traces of youki had to have come from the demon who was his master or patron or whatever the crap he was to him.

"What the fuck is this place and how did you get me here?" he asked. He could not summon much more than a croak, but the man heard him.

"A nice touch, wasn't it? Using the well?"

"What do you know about the well, you piece of shit?"

"You're a really polite creature, aren't you? I know nothing about the well, actually. I simply made an educated guess," the man said, sounding so pleased with himself that Inuyasha itched to smack him about the head with a club. "For some time, I didn't even _know_ it was a well – my little spirit-child was not designed to speak or describe things, so when I eventually placed new spells on it to allow it to do so, I had the most painful time imaginable attempting to understand what it was trying to tell me. I thought it was just a hole in the ground that it had been gathering those precious emotions from, but when I finally understood that it was a deep, even hole with wood around its edge, I realised it was a well, and guessed that it must once have been a doorway to somewhere, as the child eventually managed to put together enough words to explain that you kept leaping in and out of it over and over again. That _really_ was just a lucky guess. I gave the child a one-time portal spell to flick into the well the second it lured you there, and told it to make certain that you entered the well, and it did just that, and my portal dragged you here."

"You know, you keep jabbering on and on, and I have no idea what you're yammering about," the hanyou said, in what he hoped was a disgusted tone, although it came out more like a grumbling murmur. "What the hell do you want with me?"

"You're the one who gave us all the despair we needed for a good stretch of time. All that pure desperation, perfect for distilling into those potions my master wanted so much. Then one day the supply stopped. We had a reasonable store and we drew from there, but at last it ran out, and my little ghost-child couldn't get any more. You'd stopped."

"You could ramble right on into the next century and I still wouldn't understand all the shit coming out of your mouth," Inuyasha spat. That was what he said, but he was starting to get the picture: the apparition had been collecting _his_ emotions for a time, from the well, until his friends had forced him to cease moping in it and the sorcerer could get little more. "What did you want _my_ despair for, anyway? I can point you to lots more all over the world. Heaps of it – everywhere."

"Ah, but emotions collected from different sources produce brews of different quality. My master was happy to consume all the potions I used to give him, until my little ghost child came back one day, months ago, with its bottle full of despair from a single source, someone who seemed both human and demon – I guessed it must be a hanyou. When I made a potion from it, my master drank it and thirsted for more, and wanted none other. He said it tasted and worked like nothing else – nothing else I had gathered from humans or demons or animals – it was unique, and perfect."

Inuyasha had been gradually shifting his weight onto his elbows as the sorcerer spoke, for his vision was slowly clearing, and he managed to lift his head off the ground to say caustically: "Let me see if I've got this straight – you've been distilling _my_ emotions into a drug for some pathetic demon-addict who likes misery so much that he needs it to be made into a drink for him? What's wrong with him? Can't chew on prey for himself cos he's lost all his teeth?"

"You will mind your tongue when you refer to my master, half-breed," the sorcerer said sternly, colour flaring up around his nose and eyes.

He didn't feel up to it at all, but he had to give it a bash while the man was off-balance and irritated with him. Summoning every last drop of strength he had, Inuyasha pulled himself into a crouching position. Lifting his head and arms from there, he struck out at the magical barrier with Tetsusaiga and his fists. It burned and hurt his skin, and Tetsusaiga throbbed in protest, but the sword could not flare into life, and he could not even crack the shield. The effort left him drained and feeling sick, and he knelt beside the barrier and retched. He tried to keep it down, but he retched again, and his stomach gave up the remains of last night's dinner, which splattered onto the ground.

Despite his failure to damage the shield, the sorcerer looked alarmed. "You really are ridiculously strong, aren't you? We're going to have to do something about that. It's just as well you're only in a holding area. _This_ is where I'll be keeping you…"

As he said those words, he picked up a staff, pressed one end of it to the barrier, and used it to make a firm flicking motion towards another part of the cave. Inuyasha felt himself pulled again through exactly the same kind of portal he had felt himself falling through earlier in the well. It left him disoriented and nauseated as it had before, except the journey was much shorter this time, because the sorcerer had merely moved him from one part of the cave to another.

He lay curled up in his new prison, around which he could see iron bars that he would normally have had little trouble breaking through, but which were clearly steeped in the same energy-depleting spells that the holding area had been. His body was pressed against a rough stone slab also imbued with magic, and his feet touched the bars at one end, while his hands touched the bars at the other. He looked up and saw another stone slab above him, demarcating a space too low for him to be able to stand in – he might be able to sit up, but that was it – and too small to fully stretch out in while lying down.

He was in a cage.

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"So _this_ is the half-breed who has been the source of my _despair_," a voice brimming with amusement reached Inuyasha's ears, some time after what felt like a long spell of drifting in and out of consciousness inside the cage. "What an adorable creature."

"Don't get too close, Kinrin-sama. He may be out of it, but he's vicious, and very strong," he heard the sorcerer say. "I had to intensify the spells on the cage before I could make him pass out so that I would be able to remove his sword and check his clothing for hidden weapons. All the demons we held here before were easily rendered unconscious with only half or a quarter of the spell-strength I've had to use on him."

"Oh, but he looks utterly charming – those fuzzy ears, and all that beautiful silver hair. How come he still retains his demon characteristics when your spells are supposed to suppress them? If he's a half-breed, shouldn't he be in his full-human form by now?"

"The spells only suppress his _strength_, but they won't change his half-demon appearance. I've heard that half-demons naturally spend some time in their human form, although I don't know when this one does, so if we keep him long enough, you may be able to see what he looks like as a full human, Kinrin-sama."

"Make sure that we _do_ keep him long enough, then. I'd love to see that for myself. I'm sure he looks just as pretty in his human shape."

"Kinrin-sama, please be careful…"

Inuyasha sensed something intruding through the bars into the cage, getting closer and closer to him, until it touched his hair. He whipped around in a flash within the confined space he was in, slashing out with his claws and snapping with his fangs at the thing that had touched him.

What he saw was a flash of gold, then lots more gold. The demon who had extended a hand into his cage to stroke him – and hastily retracted it when Inuyasha lashed out – was a gold-scaled being, glossy, long-limbed and sleek-muscled. He was stooping in front of the low cage so that he could get a good look at the hanyou locked inside it, and his mane of long green hair, which swept clear of his forehead, framed a golden-bronze face with high cheekbones and matched the glittering green of his eyes. _Dragon demon_, Inuyasha thought. _No, more like lizard, or a mix of dragon and lizard youkai._

"Ahhhh," the demon breathed, an undercurrent of excitement in the throaty hiss that issued from him. "Feisty little thing. And such beautiful golden eyes. I knew the potions you gave me had to have come from a very special source. And that he is, this ferocious little animal. Maybe I should keep him for good. I think I'll enjoy taming this one, I will."

Inuyasha snarled with fury, and to cover up the shudder that ran through his body, triggered by the creeping, sickening sensation crawling over his skin. The way this reptile was talking, and looking at him, and smiling as he stared, made him want to hurl. The very sound of that voice felt like a repulsive contaminant that was coating him in slime, and he desperately wanted to scrub it off his flesh.

"Fuck you," he spat through the cage bars at the reptile demon, who gave a short laugh in response.

"Exactly what I was thinking, little half-breed. Exactly."

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"Kinrin-sama has been in here three times to look at you while you slept," the sorcerer murmured, when Inuyasha next stirred. "That's more often he's come by in two days than he's visited this den of mine in the past month."

He sounded resentful.

"He's so pleased with having captured you that he hasn't even been hounding me for the brew I'm making from the emotions I've been able to extract from you."

Inuyasha opened his eyes a crack to see the sorcerer stooping in front of his cage, poking at something secured to the upper ends of the bars with his staff, and for the first time, he noticed a row of vessels that looked very similar to the one the child apparition had been carrying.

"It's so much easier getting them this way than through my little ghost-child."

"It's not a ghost or a child," Inuyasha muttered. "It's just a thing you made."

"Technically, yes. It isn't a ghost, or a spirit, or a child. It's just an artificial being I created to gather the essences I needed to make my potions. But I like thinking of it as a ghost-child. It hasn't come back, by the way. I can only assume that someone must have got hold of it over there where you came from. Do you have friends who know how to do that? Is that what they've done? Trapped my spirit-child? Well, it doesn't matter. I've severed all portal connections between it and myself, and besides, it won't be able to tell them anything. The heavens know how hard it was for _me_ to extract any useful information from it – so I very, very much doubt that anyone holding it right now will learn anything at all."

"What are you gathering all these bloody emotions for, you bastard?" Inuyasha asked. His throat felt dry. He'd had a bowl of water thrust into his cage for him to drink from some time ago, and he needed more now, but he didn't intend to ask for it.

"Kinrin-sama has his uses for them, which are not your business – although he may be pleased to elaborate on them to you if he really decides to keep you," the sorcerer said.

Suppressing the urge to retch at the thought of being kept by the reptile youkai, Inuyasha pressed for more information: "You weren't collecting emotions only from me – that apparition has been gathering stuff from everywhere."

"Oh, that's only for the run-of-the-mill potions that Kinrin-sama ordered. The emotions from _you_, however, have been and are for his _personal_ use." The emphasis that the sorcerer put on the world _personal_ had a sleazy ring to it.

The man rose and started to walk away from the cage, but stopped after a few steps, turned back and stooped down again to look through the bars. "You know, it's quite funny, really," he mused aloud, gazing at Inuyasha.

"What the fuck are you talking about now?" the hanyou snarled, stifling a cough that threatened to erupt from his parched throat.

"_No one_ would ever have seen my ghost-child if you had only remained miserable."

"I have no idea what you're on about. As usual."

The sorcerer smiled. "It really is amusing. There it was, discreetly collecting essences from all over this land for months and months, and getting them back to me, and all was fine. No one ever saw it, to the best of my knowledge. Then it was drawn to your emotions and would dip into the well whenever you weren't inside – or sometimes when you were, but weren't looking – to pick up your despair, and Kinrin-sama loved the brew from that, and all was _still_ well. Then you stopped being unhappy, for whatever reason, and we ran out of that particular potion, and Kinrin-sama demanded more. That was when I started sending my ghost out all over, at all hours, everywhere it could go, taxing the limits of my control over it, in an attempt to find a replacement source. From all the reports I heard all over the country, just about everyone saw it then. But it seems that half-breeds are rare in our world, and half-breeds in despair are rarer still, and nothing I made from all that it collected could satisfy Kinrin-sama as a substitute."

"So?" he growled.

"The silliest part of it all was that the child was never designed to be able to tell one place or person from another – at the start, I created it to simply be drawn to various emotions I asked for, and speed towards them through magical pathways. It was never intended to be able to navigate _physical_ landscapes. Even after I made it capable of speech, it couldn't tell me where your well was located, who you were, what you looked like or anything that would have allowed me to find you. In fact, it could no longer even find the well through its usual magical routes, because your emotions were no longer there to attract it. You can't imagine _how_ _many_ new and difficult spells I had to put on it so that it would be able to identify places and recognise individual beings, and to try and trace _you_, to literally sniff you out on the physical plane, from scratch. I finally managed that trick only a few days ago. And here you are."

_A few days ago? That must have been when the bear youkai saw the apparition again, behaving differently and sniffing at them,_ Inuyasha thought.

"You've caused me no end of trouble, half-breed. But Kinrin-sama should be much happier now that we have you right here in the flesh, where we can get anything we want from you. Oh yes, he'll be much happier now. And when he's happy, I'm happy. So everything will be fine, and he can concentrate again on his plans for the dragon clan."

"Plans?"

The sorcerer sniffed. "Yes, his plans. Once he's done with those, he will have all the time in the world for you. And I hope he uses you up and discards you like the piece of trash you'll be by the time he's done with you. He always comes back to me eventually."

"You can keep the pervert for yourself, you lump of turd. If he touches me I'll rip his filthy hand off."

"Sure you will. Now you really must go back to sleep. I'm getting some _very_ interesting ingredients from you every time you have a nightmare – and you seem to be having a lot of those."

The sorcerer applied his staff to the cage, increased the intensity of the spells further, and after a struggle to remain conscious, Inuyasha slipped once more into oblivion.


	15. Perforce, withholds the loved boy

Chapter XV: _Perforce, withholds the loved boy_

"Are you a boy or a girl?" Rin asked, moving as close to the barrier as Kaede would allow, and staring wide-eyed at the apparition trapped inside it.

"Boy or girl?" the child-like thing asked in return. "What is that?"

"Eh?" Rin gasped. "Everybody knows if they're a boy or girl! Which are you?"

Kaede, resting her hands on Rin's shoulders, said gently: "Rin, this apparition isn't a real child. It is an artificial being. It doesn't know if it's a boy or a girl. I don't think it's either."

"Huh?" Rin exclaimed in amazement, turning to stare up at the priestess. "But it only has to look inside its clothes to know!"

"Even though its master has made it more solid, its clothes and body aren't real. They're like the clothes Shippo draws on the people in his pictures – there's probably nothing else behind them. Every part of it is drawn, so to speak."

They were in Kaede's hut on the third day of holding the apparition, after Miroku, Kaede and Sango had camped outdoors for two days beside the well and the barrier, fearing that if they tried to shift the barrier, it would break.

"Something strong enough to push Inuyasha into the well would be strong enough to escape if we weakened the shield in any way," Sango had protested, when the rain came down on the second day and Miroku broached the subject of shifting the entire thing indoors.

"If we camp out here any longer, we'll fall ill from exposure, and who's going to care for Shippo and Rin then?" the monk sighed. "Kaede-sama's looking exhausted already." He failed to mention that Shippo and Rin had in fact been the ones caring for them these past days, cooking simple meals and carrying them out to the well, or getting help from some of the villagers to prepare their food.

So they had added seals and reinforced the barrier, and made the bumpy journey back to the village, with Miroku and Kaede moving the spherical shield gingerly between them like a hazardous piece of baggage. They then had to navigate the pockets of curious villagers who had already trickled out to the well for a look, but still came out now to stare at the "ghost", which seemed unfazed by its audience. Eventually, they had to park Shippo outside the hut to stop people from crowding in to view it as if it were an exotic animal.

Their attempts to question it had thus far been an exercise in frustration. Rin's failure to get so much as a half-answer from it as to whether it was male or female only summed up for them the impossibility of extracting useful information from it: it was a thing that had as good as hatched new into the world, and while it had rudimentary language ability, was so unaware of facts everyone else took for granted, that they could barely ask a single question without having another asked about it in return. Kaede had sat by the barrier for some hours after moving it into the hut and talked to it, trying to teach it things so it would know more before being further questioned. But it did not seem to have been designed to absorb a lot of information, so she could not impart much to it.

After painful and patient interrogation, they managed only to grasp from its halting answers that it had been to the well before, taken "the hanyou's unhappiness" from it, "lost" the well, found it again, found Inuyasha, and sent him "to my master". As to who its master was, the reply was simply "my master", and when pressed for a name, could not supply one. When they asked if it had ever seen a demon with its master, they had to cobble together the bits of information it gave, which eventually amounted to the fact that the apparition had only ever seen its master when it was "home". Asked what it had done to the well, it could only say that "my master gave… the thing… to put in the well before the hanyou".

"Why did your master want you to put the hanyou in the well?" Kaede asked.

"The well... no more unhappiness."

"When was there no more unhappiness in the well?"

"When?" it queried, and they knew this line of questioning would get nowhere, for it had little concept of time.

"Do you collect only the hanyou's unhappiness? Do you collect other things?" Kaede asked it.

"Collect everything," came the whispered answer.

The priestess turned to her companions. "I think Inuyasha's emotions were among many it was collecting, but for some reason, its master wanted Inuyasha badly enough to have him pushed into the well, into which he must have placed a portal spell," she said. "I imagine that when Shippo finally coaxed Inuyasha out of the well some weeks ago, the emotions in it ran dry, and eventually the warlock decided to take Inuyasha himself."

"Why would he want Inuyasha in particular?" Miroku asked. "We haven't heard from other villages so far about the apparition making anyone else disappear."

"And didn't Inuyasha sometimes sneak back out to the well after we persuaded him to stop sitting in it?" Sango asked. "He thought we didn't know, but Shippo followed him out there in secret. Surely the emotions wouldn't have completely dried up in there?"

Miroku said thoughtfully: "The well is a magical structure in itself, although its former time portal has closed. In those weeks when Inuyasha sat inside it almost continuously, it must have concentrated his emotions in its confined space, and the apparition must have been drawn to that. We know that such apparitions normally collect emotions generated by a large number of people, or those generated in a place over a prolonged period of time, but perhaps the well's magical properties focused Inuyasha's unhappiness within it. He may have gone back there occasionally, but Shippo said he didn't always enter the well during that time, so perhaps the concentration that had attracted the apparition was no longer there."

"Perhaps. There's so much we don't know because we can't get answers from that child," Kaede sighed.

"It's not a child," Miroku reminded her.

"I know, but it looks so much like one."

That afternoon, while they were resting from questioning the apparition, Kohaku arrived – not riding Kirara, but carrying her in her untransformed, little-cat shape. He limped into Kaede's hut, Shippo hovering behind him, until the villagers started peeking in again, and the kitsune had to step back outside to stop them.

"Kohaku!" Rin cried happily, running up to him and grabbing his hand. She had had a bit of a crush on the handsome lad ever since he had hesitated to kill her on Naraku's orders, and her sense of connection with him had deepened in the time he had spent as part of Sesshomaru's pack. Her pleasure at seeing him whenever they met occasionally made Shippo jealous, and the kitsune now peered in at them from under the hanging screen in the doorway, pouting as he heard her tenderly ask the boy: "What happened to your leg? How did Kirara get hurt?"

The bandage over Kohaku's left knee and shin was caked in dried blood, although he looked otherwise well, while the fire-neko was mewing softly as she nuzzled a large wound over her ribs. It looked to be healing smoothly, but it must have been crippling to begin with.

Sango's attention was torn between her brother and the neko who had been her faithful companion for so long. "What happened to the two of you?" she asked.

"We're okay," Kohaku assured her. "But Kirara can't fly right now, and I'm not walking too well. The villagers told me all the way in about you lot catching the apparition at last – and our wounds have something to do with it."

"Huh?" was the puzzled chorus in response to his news.

"Not directly – but I was looking into the matter of the apparition up north when I overheard some lizard youkai talking about it. I was up on a cliff and they were below, and the wind carried a few words up to me which indicated that they were talking about what you've got trapped over there." Here, he nodded at the apparition in the corner.

"I crept down the side of the cliff where I thought they wouldn't see me, and hid behind some rocks to better eavesdrop on them," he continued. "But even though we were downwind, they eventually realised I was there. I managed to dodge their first few blows, then Kirara flew in to get me out, and they managed to strike us both as we were gaining altitude. Kirara still got us away, though. There was some poison in our wounds, but I had suitable antidotes with me, luckily. My fault. I won't make the mistake of getting too close again. But I couldn't have heard what they were saying if I hadn't gone closer."

"What were they saying?"

"One of them was telling the other two about a sorcerer who'd had dealings with their clan some time ago, and whom he guessed was the one controlling the apparition, because he had mastered some weird craft. He said he encountered the sorcerer a few weeks ago and detected faint traces of lizard youkai on him, and wondered if they might know the demon working with him. But that was when they smelt me. So… that's all I have."

"Oh, Kohaku," Sango said, steering him over to the raised section of the hut where the little fire pit was and making him sit down with Kirara on his lap so that she and Rin could change his bandage and inspect Kirara's wound. "Why did you look into this on your own?"

"It's good that he did," Kaede remarked. "We have new information now."

But Sango looked guilty, saying to Kaede: "Kohaku and Hachi were supposed to stay in the village with us for a few days after we first saw the apparition, then Miroku and I decided to go and investigate it, so Hachi went off and Kohaku took the demon-slaying job – but he wasn't supposed to go after the apparition by himself. If we'd insisted on his coming straight to us after finishing the job…."

"I'm not a child any more, Oneesan," Kohaku said gently. "You can't always keep me safe from my own stupidity."

"I don't think you're stupid," Rin said loyally.

Miroku sighed. "Inuyasha's not a child either, and he still couldn't stop this thing that wasn't supposed to be able to touch anyone from throwing him down the well. It's only natural for your sister to want to keep you out of harm's way."

"What?" Kohaku cried. "It threw Inuyasha down the well? The villagers didn't mention that to me! Is he hurt?"

"He's disappeared," Miroku said. "We still haven't got an answer from it about where he's gone to. It said something about putting a thing in the well before pushing Inuyasha in, and we can only speculate that its master must have had it deliver a portal spell there."

"Does Sesshomaru-sama know about this?" Kohaku asked. "Maybe he could question the lizard youkai about what I overheard."

"Sesshomaru doesn't know about Inuyasha yet, unless he's found out through some other source," Miroku replied. "Besides, the inu youkai have never got along with the dragon and lizard clans, especially since the Inu no Taisho fought Ryukotsusei. We expect him back here in a few days. Inuyasha could have tracked him, but he's gone. Perhaps Kirara could have found him too, but she can't fly right now."

In the doorway, Shippo watched and listened, and the tears began to pool in his wide green eyes again as he remembered how he had screamed at Inuyasha not to follow the child-thing. "I told him not to go to the well with it!" he cried, as his friends turned to look at him. "I warned him it was a trap – I told him! But he wouldn't listen!"

"Shippo-chan…." Sango began, wanting to comfort him, but not knowing how.

Rin stood up and tried to go to him, but the kitsune ran off, away from the hut, too fast for her to see where he had gone, and the curious villagers got in the way.

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He felt cold. The stone slab beneath him was chilly, despite his having lain on it for what felt like endless hours, and all the brews bubbling and steaming in their pots over at least three small fires in the den did not seem to be warming the place up. Was it just him? The sorcerer looked quite comfortable at his worktable. Maybe he was falling ill. Or… _wait a minute…_ _what the hell? Where are my clothes?_ he wondered as he gradually became aware that he was bare-bodied apart from his prayer beads. He tried to look down at himself, but he was lying flat on his tummy in the cage, and couldn't seem to raise himself off the slab.

That was when he realised that his hands were sticking out beyond the bars at one end and chained together outside the bars, while his feet, protruding beyond the bars at the other end, were likewise chained to each other outside, by the ankles. He lifted his head and craned his neck to look over his own shoulder and back, and saw that he had been stripped down to his skin from head to toe.

_Great._ A further indignity after having been obliged to piss out through the bars while lying down and empty his bowels onto a large yam leaf in a corner of the cage when he had last been conscious, after the sorcerer made it clear that under no circumstances would he be let out to relieve himself. The only positive thing he could think of was that the bastard seemed to have a good drainage system through a network of cracks in the den's rock floor down which he washed the waste matter with buckets of water, probably into a deeper network of caverns or underground streams, or the stench would be unbearable by now.

"Oh, you're awake at last," the sorcerer said, looking up from his worktable.

Inuyasha glared at him, and as he did he saw, tossed into a heap on the floor behind his jailor, his fire rat robes and their white underlayers, with the Tetsusaiga lying atop them.

"Give me back my clothes," he growled. "And get these fucking chains off me."

"Absolutely not. Kinrin-sama wanted to have a good look at you. He already had quite an eyeful while you were out of it, but he wanted me to tell him once you awoke, so I'm going to get him now."

"Give me back my clothes!" he roared, straining to turn his head to his left to glare at the sorcerer disappearing out through a metal door in the wall of the den. But his words broke off into a series of dry coughs that felt like they were tearing his throat apart, and he lowered his face to the slab, pressing his right cheek against the cold stone. He wondered how the devil he was going to get out of this, or how any of his friends would ever be able to trace him when he hadn't travelled through a physical space to get here. And Sesshomaru – he felt an actual physical pain in his chest as he thought of him – Sesshomaru probably didn't even know he had been captured by these freaks.

The door opened again. Every muscle in his body tensed as he sensed Kinrin's youki filling the den like a wave of energy. This was a powerful demon who could take anyone on in combat – what the hell was he doing messing around with stupid things like potions? If the pervert touched him, he would…

The demon came into view before the cage, and just about ate up every inch of his exposed skin with his eyes, triggering in Inuyasha again the feeling of wanting to throw up.

"Kinrin-sama," the sorcerer said, concern filling his voice. "It's not advisable for you to come so often to the cage and stand so close to it. The spells on it are very intense to keep the half-breed under control, and I don't want you suffering any ill effects from them – their vibes affect your demon energy too, you know, and it hasn't been that long since you fully recovered –"

"Oh do be quiet, Tatsuya," the demon snapped. "I won't stay too long. I just want him awake for a while – handling unconscious creatures does absolutely nothing for me – I like them writhing, as you well know."

"I _really_ would _not_ advise you to put your hand into the cage," the sorcerer Tatsuya cautioned. "I've chained him up as you instructed, but he's so wild –"

"Oh, hush."

Inuyasha growled and snarled, but he could do little as the demon crouched down right in front of the cage and put a hand through the bars. He felt those claw-tipped, golden fingers stroke his back slowly along his spine, stopping to pinch his flesh twice, right down to his buttocks. The bars then got in the way, so the demon readjusted his position and put his arm through another pair of bars further down the cage to caress the back of his left thigh, and down his calf.

"Gorgeous muscle tone, and such creamy skin – you're very young, aren't you?" Kinrin murmured as he stroked him.

"Stop touching me, freak!" the hanyou snarled through gritted fangs.

"I've been getting the scent of another demon off you and your clothes. A very powerful one. Who is he? Your lover? So you should be used to being touched, shouldn't you?"

"Get your disgusting hands off me _now_, you sick bag of scaly hide."

"Ooh, as mouthy as before," Kinrin said. "I like that. I'll like it even better when I finish what I'm working on so I'll have time to play with you – I promise you'll like it so much you won't be able to roll a single coherent swear word off that pretty tongue of yours."

This was like every worst nightmare about Jakotsu coming after him in his human form, multiplied by about a hundred. "Yeah, you just try that and I'll rip your grubby head off and piss down your throat," he snarled.

"Ho – I am really going to have _lots and lots_ of fun breaking you in. Tatsuya tells me those beads around your neck can't be removed. Did your lover put them there? Does he control you through them? That must mean you're used to being obedient, mustn't it? You'll just have to learn to obey someone else now."

That filthy hand was playing with his butt again, probing deeper and deeper into spots it had no right to go anywhere near, and if those fingers explored any further he swore he would turn around and bite that scaly hand off even if it meant having to tear off his own arm to get free of those chains….

But Tatsuya was speaking again. "Kinrin-sama, I would strongly recommend that you move away from the cage now, before the spells make you ill."

To Inuyasha's immense relief, the hand withdrew.

"You're such a killjoy and a nag," the demon complained, standing up and stepping away from the cage at last. "Or should that be 'jealous'? Don't be, my dear – I'm big enough for the two of you and more."

Inuyasha glared up at the two beings who held him in their power and watched as Kinrin chucked Tatsuya playfully under the chin before striding out of the den. The sorcerer followed the demon with his eyes until the door clanged shut again, then turned those dark eyes back to Inuyasha to give him a look of distaste.

"Never knew he had such a taste for half-breeds," he commented, before moving over to the chains around Inuyasha's ankles and releasing them.

The hanyou pulled his feet back into the cage and twisted onto his side, drawing his knees up to his chest. Tatsuya moved over to the other end of the cage and told him sternly: "I'm going to remove these chains from your hands. Behave yourself and don't try to claw me when I do. If you behave, I'll give you some of your clothes back."

Inuyasha was sorely tempted to sink his claws into the sorcerer's arms as he handled the cuffs and chains, but he decided not to, to see if he really would give him something to wear. Once the chains were off his wrists, he pulled his hands back into the cage and waited to see what Tatsuya would do.

For a moment, he thought the sorcerer wouldn't keep his word, as he tinkered about, putting the chains away in a chest and apparently rearranging the contents of that container. But finally, he left off and went over to the corner where his clothes were, picked up the fire rat hakama, carried it over to the cage and stuffed it through the bars.

Inuyasha snatched at it and went through some contortions to pull the hakama over his legs and hips and secure the ties round his waist in that tiny cage. He knew he probably looked stupid wrestling it on. But Tatsuya wasn't paying attention and the filthy demon was out of the den for now. Looking like an idiot for a few seconds was worth it if he could retain a shred of dignity for a little longer.

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Sesshomaru had picked up traces of the bear oni's passage through a north-eastern forest, and tracked them to the border of a lizard youkai clan's territory. Loose wisps of magic waste mingled with what remained of the oni's scent, along with a miniscule hint of something reptile-demon in nature, although he could not pinpoint the type as it was well disguised by magic.

He was no friend of the dragon, lizard and snake youkai clans. Although Ah-Un was a dragon, it was a youkai beast, like a steed or a bull would be to a human who kept it, and was nothing at all like the vicious, power-hungry, politically motivated descendants and relations of Ryukotsusei. Dragon mount or no, Sesshomaru decided that barging into the territories of the scaled youkai to hunt down one of their own without having clearly identified any individual as the wrongdoer would be counterproductive, and might drive the demon he was searching for deeper underground. He decided to follow the scents south along the border instead, to see if an opening would present itself.

That was not the only thing on his mind, however. He had felt a vague, uneasy sensation in his chest all day, one that made him want to turn around and fly back to the village to see Inuyasha. But he wondered if the unease had something to do with the way he had last parted with his brother. The lad needed time away from him to work things through in his head. For all he knew, the distress he seemed to be psychically picking up from him might originate from his disgust with Sesshomaru. If so, the last thing he needed was to see him now. The sensation was unpleasant, though, and he ached to return. Perhaps if he went to the forest behind the village, he could make sure all was well without being seen by him – although Inuyasha would sense him there and think he was stalking him. That wouldn't do. Besides, he was with all his friends. He couldn't be in any real trouble.

So Sesshomaru decided against returning just yet, pushed the sense of unease down into a corner of his soul, and continued investigating the scents along the border.


	16. Let him fear this

Chapter XVI: _Let him fear this_

For the first time in a long while, Shippo was alone in an unfamiliar forest, frightened and miserable. Every fibre of his little demon being screamed out to his brain to turn around and go back to the village, even as he raced further and further from it. He was not a naturally brave kit, and his eyes kept filling with tears of apprehension as he alternately dashed along the ground or took to the trees, but he refused to beat a retreat from the task he had set himself.

He was going to find Sesshomaru.

He was nowhere near as fast as Inuyasha, but he was developing an excellent nose, and could track scents better now than he had been able to a year ago. Sesshomaru was adept at disguising his scent and youki when he chose – or to let himself be detected from miles away when he swung into "intimidate and terrify" mode – but he nonetheless had distinctive signature vibes that Shippo was very familiar with. He told himself that he would find him somehow.

He had made that decision after Kohaku arrived, when he realised that with Kirara unable to fly, none of his human friends could possibly track the taiyoukai. It was up to him. He could not tell them, or they would try to stop him. And he wanted them to know too that he could be as brave and resourceful as Kohaku. So he had left a badly scrawled note tied to the tree in which he and Inuyasha often rested, and slipped away from the village.

The kitsune had been on his own for two whole days now, and already dodged a few beasts looking for easy food deep in the forests. He curled up inside hollow logs to sleep for a while on both afternoons, but went on his way once the sun began to set. The hours of darkness were an important time to stay alert to avoid becoming someone else's meal, for demon activity was much higher at night.

He was starting to pick up Sesshomaru's scent more strongly now, as he moved towards the eastern coast. The dog demon had obviously spent a lot of time on the ground investigating scents and tracking leads. The clearer trail helped him pick up speed, and he soon figured that it was leading north-east. Although he lost the trail a few times, probably when Sesshomaru took to the air on Ah-Un or on his own steam, the general direction of his passage was clear, so he pressed on.

_I'm so scared,_ he kept hearing his own voice say in his head, though he tried to ignore it. _I wish this was back in the past when everyone was around, and Kagome would always protect me even when she could barely protect herself. And Inuyasha may have hit me a lot, but he always kept me safe from real harm, so I can't just let him disappear like that without trying to help… but I'm so scared…._

Still, he reminded himself that if this were the past, that would mean Naraku wouldn't be gone yet, and they would all be fighting to save everything they held dear from corruption. _I mustn't make such wishes,_ he reminded himself. _We've learnt that wishes do come true, so I mustn't make them carelessly…._

He could smell reptiles now. He guessed he must be out of neutral forest territory and getting close to the lands which, if he remembered correctly, were claimed by some of the lizard youkai clans.

Shippo did not like lizards. Or dragons, although Ah-Un seemed safe enough. Or snakes. Or… _oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no, what was that…?_

He froze as he sensed something near him, something large, and looked around frantically to see which way he should go to avoid it. Nothing in all directions on the forest floor, so….

With a mounting sense of dread, he looked up, and directly above him against the darkening sky was an enormous snake demon draped over a tree, viewing him hungrily through a pair of red eyes.

"Aaaaaaarrrrrrrrrr!!!!" Shippo yelled in fright, leaping aside as it came striking down towards the ground, just missing him.

The kitsune fled for his life, running as fast as his little legs would carry him, using his small size to his advantage by ducking through, under and around thick brush, fallen branches, trunks and anything that could provide cover. He tried distracting it with a few hastily thrown tricks and a burst of fox fire, but the snake was quick and flexible, seemingly impossible to shake.

He whimpered as he ran on, dodging the great slithering shape behind him, his mind choked by the terror of venomous fangs, forked tongues and slippery scales, barely knowing which direction he was tearing in now – it would be his sheer dumb luck if he was still heading the right way – he couldn't keep up this pace – he was going to die a horrible death alone – why had he ever come out here – who did he think he was that he could find Sesshomaru, who was terrifying enough all by himself anyway, and….

The snake towered over him – he saw the looming shadow each time he glanced back – ready to strike. Shippo let out another loud cry, more tears streaming down his face, and tried to pick up speed to make it to that next clump of undergrowth just over there –

Something else loomed up ahead, and for a moment, he wasn't sure if he ought to be just as scared of it despite it being the object of his mission. It was Sesshomaru, sword drawn, glaring coldly at the scene, seemingly as displeased to see him as he was to see the snake. But better the devil he knew, Shippo thought, and shamelessly dashed around to hide behind the taiyoukai's legs as the snake surged forward. Further back, he could see Ah-Un and Jaken watching from among the trees, but couldn't find the strength to run over to them.

He crouched on the ground behind Sesshomaru, chest heaving, heart racing, as the dog demon slew the snake in one easy stroke, without even moving his feet from the spot. The reptile youkai, slashed open from neck to midsection, reared back one last time before collapsing bonelessly onto the forest floor.

Once it was dead, Shippo started sobbing in sheer relief, and also because he remembered why he had come. He truly didn't know if Sesshomaru would bother to help Inuyasha, as his experience of the taiyoukai for ever so long had been that of a being who thought himself too superior to care about others; the kinder personality Shippo had seen recently had not been in force long enough for him to believe deep in his heart that he had changed that much. His wild imagination was already playing scenes of Sesshomaru coldly asking him why he should be troubled if his stupid hanyou half-brother chose to get himself tossed into wells.

What Sesshomaru asked as Shippo stared up at him through his tears, however, was: "What are you doing here? Are you by yourself?" He sounded angry.

Shippo saw the taiyoukai sniff the air to determine that no one else was nearby, but he could not speak, because he was crying so hard.

"No one is with you? What made you come all the way out here alone?"

"I – Inu – Inuyasha's disappeared!" Shippo finally pushed the words out between his choking sobs. "Th – the apparition pushed him into the well and h – he's disappeared – he's been taken by the warlock!"

Shippo could not see any change on Sesshomaru's face – the taiyoukai looked as annoyed as he had at the start – but he saw those golden eyes flash with a reaction that might have been anything from irritation to rage, and for a few seconds he had no idea whether he was angry at being bothered by such a small matter, miffed that his sword was dirty with snake youkai blood, or absolutely enraged that Inuyasha was missing.

"Miroku caught the apparition, but it can't answer their questions, and no one knows where Inuyasha is," the kitsune went on in sheer desperation and panic. "It's been five days since he fell into the well…"

Shippo suddenly felt himself scooped up clear off the ground in one sweep by a single pale, long-fingered hand and carried over to Ah-Un in a second, even before he registered what was happening. He was sure Sesshomaru had never so much as touched him before, much less lifted him up. That was when he knew that he was going to help – that he cared about Inuyasha, and was furious that someone might harm him. In fact, he could have sworn the taiyoukai was all but panicking, if it was possible for one such as him to panic.

Sesshomaru deposited Shippo behind him on the dragon, while Jaken, who seemed to have the good sense for once to hold his tongue, sat further behind, clinging to the length of white fur.

"Hold on to my sash unless you want to fall off and fly all the way back by yourself," the dog demon told the fox.

"A – All right," Shippo stammered, gripping Sesshomaru's yellow and purple sash where it crossed his waist at the back.

As Ah-Un soared skyward, Sesshomaru questioned Shippo. "This happened five days ago? The day after I left?"

"Yes. Only Inuyasha knew how to track you, so we waited and hoped you would come back soon. But when you didn't return by the third afternoon, I set off to look for you." Shippo started crying again as he thought of how he had warned Inuyasha not to follow the apparition.

"Stop crying, kit," Sesshomaru ordered firmly, in a tight voice. "You did well to find me."

_Does he really care about Inuyasha?_ Shippo wondered as he stifled his sobs. _Is that why he's so upset? Or is he just furious that all this happened while his back was turned?_

He didn't know. But Ah-Un was going _very_ fast now, and surely all this speed and haste could only be for the sake of someone Sesshomaru cared for. A lot.

:

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:

"He's not going to be any good to me dead, you know," Kinrin told Tatsuya, as he looked at Inuyasha curled up and coughing in the cage, dressed only in his hakama. "Your spells have suppressed his half-demon strength so much that he's probably not healing as he normally would. You'd better make sure he stays warm."

Inuyasha, feeling like something the cat had dragged in, eaten and regurgitated, didn't care at this point if he sickened further, as long as the pervert kept his hands off him. Fortunately, the state he was in seemed to have deterred the demon from trying to touch him again.

Kinrin left the den in what looked very much like a foul mood, immediately after which the sorcerer used his staff to shift the cage to a warmer part of the den, stuffed the rest of Inuyasha's clothes back in through the bars, and lowered the intensity of the spells which kept the hanyou in check.

With no daylight ever visible in the den, and his having slipped in and out of consciousness so many times, Inuyasha had no idea how long he had been held here. But it had been days, surely. He was feverish, and his entire body ached from the illness taking hold of him. Everything hurt as he slowly pulled on the nagajuban and suikan that had been returned to him. The hakama underlayer would have to wait, for the effort of donning his upper garments alone left him prone on the slab, breathless. He had also not put on his hadajuban yet; it remained clutched in his right hand.

He did, however, gradually start to feel a bit better as he got warmer and the spells were eased – though he would rather stay ill if it meant that Kinrin would leave him alone. The demon had not molested him since he had stroked, pinched and probed him as he lay chained to the cage, for he had fallen much sicker after that. Feeling safer now with more clothes on, despite knowing it was a false security, he tried to focus on how to get out of here.

But the sorcerer was at his cage, shoving some meat and water at him. He sat up and forced himself to eat and drink, knowing that he must keep his strength up if he was ever to escape – or better yet, slice the heads of these two twisted bastards off their bloody necks. Tatsuya also tossed a few herbs into the cage.

"Eat those. They'll help you feel better. Don't worry, I wouldn't dare poison you – not when Kinrin-sama wants you as healthy as possible."

He chewed the bitter herbs and swallowed, and Tatsuya even gave him more water to help him wash them down.

"Don't think you'll put him off for long with your illness. If he hasn't been here much in the last two days it's because he's busy with his plans, and besides, he hasn't been very well himself," the sorcerer murmured. "Oh, I can see it in your eyes – your disgust with him – but he's been through a lot, you know."

_Oh, that's hilarious. Telling me your scummy master has been through a lot when he's the one keeping me in a cage and groping my butt,_ Inuyasha growled inwardly. Yet, it would be useful to learn about any weaknesses of Kinrin's, so he listened quietly as Tatsuya went on, indulging his love of hearing his own voice.

"He was a powerful half-dragon demon, among a small number most likely to succeed Ryukotsusei," Tatsuya said. "You must have heard of Ryukotsusei."

Inuyasha kept a neutral countenance, but his spell-clouded mind cleared a little at the mention of the taiyoukai dragon his father had sealed to a cliff so many years ago, and whom he himself had fairly recently slain after Naraku undid the seal. Obviously, neither Kinrin nor Tatsuya had any idea that the hanyou they held prisoner was the one who had put Ryukotsusei to the sword, or they would have mentioned it, considering Kinrin's ties to the ruling dragon youkai.

"Things held steady for two hundred years while Ryukotsusei remained under a seal, and the dragon youkai shared power while trying to find ways to undo the seal and bring Ryukotsusei back. Kinrin-sama was among the leading lights of the clan, despite his lizard blood, and I was his secret weapon for the last twenty years, giving him spells and power that offered him an advantage. But one day, word came that Ryukotsusei had not only had the seal on him removed, but had been slain for good. An internal power struggle broke out. Kinrin-sama was betrayed and so badly wounded that he nearly died. Fortunately, I was able to save him. I had to put spells on him just to keep him alive. His body was ruined, and the only thing keeping him going was his desire for revenge. The only spell I could craft quickly enough to not only save him but also restore his strength required him to consume spirits that fed on emotions, so I trapped several and used them to sustain and heal him. Somehow, the spirits that worked best in harmony with the spells at repairing his broken body were the ones that fed off despair and unhappiness, and after he recovered, we found that he had developed a need for the essence of despair. He has almost fully recovered his strength, but I believe his need for the potions will go on for a long time yet."

"Need?" Inuyasha muttered. "You mean his addiction."

Tatsuya said angrily: "Until you have been _that_ broken and found the only thing that would make you heal, then ended up dependent on it, don't judge him."

"I'll judge him as I please. So he's addicted to some stupid misery drug. What the fuck has that to do with his touching me like the pervert he is?"

The sorcerer seemed torn between defending Kinrin to Inuyasha, and taunting the hanyou about his impending fate before settling for the latter by saying nastily: "That's another kind of need, or preference, shall we say. I humour him whenever I can, because I know he always turns back to me when he's tired of his playthings. He'll weary of you once he's broken your spirit – he will, I assure you. And he'll only release you when you're dead or mad. I suppose I'll see the back of you then, and you of me. Before he amuses himself with you, however, he'll be wreaking his revenge on the dragons. Once we've put that in motion, he'll have all the time he likes to do whatever he wants with you, half-breed. So you'd better stay alive and healthy until then. I would hate to see him disappointed if you should die before he has his fun with you."

He got up and left the den, and Inuyasha knew that he would have to get out of here quickly before that grimy-souled demon turned his attention back to him. The sorcerer was telling him things he had previously insisted were none of his business, and clearly not caring to keep too much secret any more. That could only mean that he did not expect Inuyasha to leave alive, or at least not in any condition in which he would be useful to anyone else, ever again.

Inuyasha had never been one to give up even when all seemed lost, but the sickness and magic were getting to him, making it hard to maintain his usual brashness and bravado. He had tried, but nothing had worked. Whenever he'd been left alone and conscious in the den, he had attempted to damage the cage bars, reach for objects to use as tools, and summon Tetsusaiga to him, but nothing had cracked or moved. The sword had failed to respond. The spells were suppressing his half-demon strength, his ability to communicate with Tetsusaiga, and the healing processes of his body. He felt even weaker than he did on new-moon nights. Kaede could probably thrash him in a fist fight right now.

Languishing like this was unacceptable. He imagined the earful Sesshomaru would give him – in all likelihood along with another dose of the whip – if he saw him like this. He would have to find the fight in him again quickly, to make it out of here. Only it all looked so hopeless that his battling spirit felt swamped by pessimism.

He clutched the lapels of his suikan and pulled them tightly over one another, as if wrapping himself up more snugly could ward off danger and harm. He still had not put on his hadajuban; it was one of the two Sesshomaru had given him, and he just wanted to hold it for a while. The other undershirt was back at Kaede's, wrapped in a cloth bundle along with a few things Kagome had left behind. He wished he was back in the hut now; he wished he was safe in Kagome's time, in her room; he wished he was safe in Sesshomaru's arms.

Inuyasha curled up on his side again, pressed his face to the undershirt, and soon drifted into a natural sleep, drawing comfort from the fabric which was suffused with Sesshomaru's scent mingling with his own.


	17. At the length truth will out

Chapter XVII: _At the length truth will out_

"I don't think we can keep strengthening the barrier much longer," Miroku sounded worried. Darkness had fallen on their fifth day of holding the apparition captive, and they were preparing to take turns keeping vigil until dawn, as they had for four nights.

"What will happen when it dissolves?" Sango asked. "The thing was quick and strong enough to shove Inuyasha into the well – what if it attacks us?"

"I don't think it was under instructions to attack anyone else, although I can't be certain," Miroku replied. "We are faced with a few possibilities once the barrier comes down. It may return to its master if it can still access portals that will lead it back to him, or wander loose, or may disintegrate into nothing if its master has cut it off for good."

"Is there a way to destroy it?" Kohaku asked from the corner of the hut where he sat with Rin.

"I suppose we can find some way to do that, although it seems cruel to end its existence when it may do no further harm on its own," Kaede said.

"We do not know what harm it may cause if left loose. I think we will have to destroy it. It isn't real, anyway," Sango said, although she looked sorry for it.

"It has some kind of life of its own, artificial or not," Miroku said. "In many ways, Kagura was an artificial life form too, but she had feelings."

"That's why it's so hard to coldly terminate it," Kaede sighed.

Kirara landed outside the hut just then. She had healed in the course of two days, and could fly again. She transformed into her smaller shape, walked into the hut and mewed.

"No sign of Shippo?" Sango asked, stroking the cat.

"Mew."

"I hope he's all right. If Kirara hasn't been able to spot him nearby, he's either found Sesshomaru by now, or…" her voice trailed off as she considered the alternatives. The kitsune's scrawled note lay in one corner of the hut, near Inuyasha's small bundle of belongings.

They sat quietly through the evening, eating a quick meal by the light of the pit fire. As late evening turned to night proper, Kaede, Miroku and Kohaku lay down to sleep so that they could be awakened in turn to keep an eye on the barrier. Rin did not wish to sleep yet as she was not required to keep watch, so she sat beside Sango in a companionable silence, while Kirara dozed on Sango's lap.

Just as Rin's eyes started to feel heavy-lidded in the early hours of the morning, Kirara jumped out of Sango's lap, pricking up her ears and twin tails.

"I think I sense…" Sango began, tapping Rin on the shoulder and walking over to the door to look out into the night, just as Sesshomaru blew into the village in a starlit streak of white cloud, silk and streaming hair.

In the faint moonlight, Sango could make out Jaken clinging to one end of the mokomoko. Shippo, to her astonishment, was perched on Sesshomaru's shoulder, holding on to his breastplate trim.

"Shippo-chan!" Sango cried, as the kitsune hopped to the ground.

"Sesshomaru-sama! Shippo!" Rin exclaimed.

The others awoke with a start at their cries, to be greeted by the kitsune tearing towards the hut and throwing himself into Sango's arms in the doorway. "I – I'm sorry I ran off without telling you, but we needed to find S – Sesshomaru fast!" he broke down in tears again, having held them in for hours so as not to annoy the taiyoukai.

Sesshomaru looked as purposeful as they had ever seen him look when he strode into the hut, glanced at the apparition in the barrier, and asked them: "Has that thing given you any useful information yet?"

"I'm afraid not," Miroku admitted. "Its language abilities and understanding are very limited. But Kohaku overheard a lizard youkai mentioning that he had detected a hint of lizard demon on a warlock he encountered some weeks ago."

"That ties in with my own investigations," Sesshomaru said. "But we need a name. Tell me what it has told you so far."

Miroku and Kaede gave the taiyoukai a quick rundown of the fragmented answers the apparition had given them, their guesses that the warlock had specifically targeted Inuyasha, and how the information and speculation so far amounted to nothing useful that would help them find their friend.

"How did he come to be close enough to the well to get pushed in?" Sesshomaru asked.

"I believe it told him that its master could open the well for him," Miroku said hesitantly, glancing at Shippo for confirmation. In the firelight, he thought he saw Sesshomaru's face darken a shade, and hastily added: "I am sure that Inuyasha had no intention of jumping into the well – he was merely keeping an eye on the apparition."

Sesshomaru looked at him with yet another unreadable expression – probably the hundredth variation on inscrutability Miroku had seen on his face since first setting eyes on him – before turning his attention to the apparition.

"Perhaps it understands images better than it does words," Sesshomaru suggested. "Words appear to have got you nowhere, so let us try something else."

"Such as?" Miroku asked.

"Kohaku's confirmation of what I found to be traces of a lizard youkai's involvement gives me an idea. I assume that it can see as well in the dark as I can? Ask it to look around at all of us and indicate which of us dresses most like its master."

Kaede asked the child-being, as she plucked at her own sleeve: "Does your master wear clothing over his body? Like what we wear?"

"Yes," it said, looking at the sleeve she fingered.

"Which clothing here looks something like your master's?"

It pointed to Miroku.

"Ask it if it has ever seen its master without his clothes," Sesshomaru prompted Kaede.

"Does your master take off the clothes sometimes?" Kaede made a motion with her arms to mimic the removal of clothing.

"Yes," came the answer.

"Good," was Sesshomaru's unexpected comment. "Houshi, please remove your robes."

"Wh-what?" Miroku stammered, while Sango's mouth fell open.

"Please oblige me," Sesshomaru insisted. "Rin, go outside and wait with Jaken."

"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama!" the girl said obediently, doing exactly as instructed.

"Now, houshi, please remove your robes. The only people in the hut now are either male, to whom your body should be no mystery, or elderly enough to have seen it all. And the last is your wife, so please disrobe."

Miroku looked too stunned to move for a moment, but when the taiyoukai glared at him, he began peeling off his robes and its underlayers, until he stood in his loincloth. "Y-you don't need me to remove this as well, do you?" he asked, gesturing to the strip of fabric that was now the only thing protecting his modesty.

"Probably not, unless I do not get the answers I need." Sesshomaru's reply was of no comfort to the monk. "Miko, please ask it if it has seen any marks on its master's body that are not on the houshi's, and where the marks may be."

Kaede asked: "Look at this man now. When your master removes his clothes, do you see any markings on his body that this man does not have?"

"Yes."

"Where?"

The apparition pointed to Miroku's chest.

Sesshomaru then said: "Give me something to write on and with."

Before Sango could run for the blank sutra sheets and inkbrush in the corner, Shippo snatched up the crayons and drawing paper that Kagome had given him, and presented them to Sesshomaru. The taiyoukai stared curiously at the peculiar materials, but selected the black crayon anyway and began drawing a series of symbols on the paper, spacing them well apart.

One was a wavy line with a dot at the end; another was a line that split into two at one end; the third was three parallel lines; the fourth was a circle that did not close but whose curved line veered inwards into the circle until it intersected the base.

"Does the mark on your master's body look like any of these?" Sesshomaru addressed the apparition directly.

"Yes," the child-being replied, and pointed to the line that split into two at one end – the forked shape.

"Good," Sesshomaru said. "I believe I know whom we are dealing with now. The dragon, lizard and snake clans fell into disarray after Inuyasha slew Ryukotsusei, when there was no more hope that their leader could be returned to life, and they began fighting among themselves for power in the far west, and in the eastern waters. The mark the apparition pointed to belongs to one of the factions involved in that power struggle, whose most prominent member was a youkai of mixed dragon and lizard ancestry. The dragon clans and their relations often brand or tattoo their animals and other non-demon subordinates with their marks to indicate ownership, and if the warlock has this mark, then I know who his master is. To find him, however, we shall have to ask the right parties."

"May Sango and I go with you?" Miroku asked, as he pulled his robes back on. "We want to help get Inuyasha back – I may be able to counter the warlock's spells while you go for the demon. Kirara can fly again, so we won't slow you down."

"Yes, if you wish. But before we leave, we must see to this being. The barrier looks as if it will disperse soon. As it was capable of pushing Inuyasha into the well, I will not leave it here to cause possible harm to the miko and the young ones. Take the barrier down now," Sesshomaru instructed. "We shall deal with it quickly before we go."

As Sesshomaru drew the Tenseiga, Kaede and Miroku dispersed the barrier, and the apparition stood free of it for a second. But in the next few moments, it grew fainter, then began to break up on the spot into disjointed patches of colour. "Home?" it asked, but it faded further.

A minute later, it had disintegrated into nothing.

"Its master must have cut loose all its connections to him when it didn't return," Kaede said sadly, when no trace of the child-being remained. "It can have no real life without him; perhaps he designed it to fall apart once he could no longer control it. It looks like our barrier was the only thing keeping it in existence."

Sesshomaru sheathed the Tenseiga, which he had not had to use after all. The shades of Kagura's final seconds of life echoed in the disintegration of the child-being, and it sobered them all for a while, before the pressing matter of recovering Inuyasha from the warlock and the reptile demon pushed them back into motion.

_Sesshomaru looks outwardly calm,_ Miroku thought as he took his old place behind Sango on Kirara. _But even I can feel his tension – whoever has taken Inuyasha will have hell to pay._

Jaken, who had not entered the hut at all, clung to the mokomoko again as Sesshomaru took flight, calling for Ah-Un. The dragon met them above the forest behind the village, and the taiyoukai mounted it in the air. Kirara flew just behind and beside the two-headed beast as they proceeded north, towards one edge of the lizard youkai territory, an area of caves and cliffs by the coast.

:

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:

The tokage youkai called Kimidori by his friends for the pale green of his scales knew the coming day would be a bad one when the eel he caught for his nighttime meal turned out to have flesh that was already half-corrupted by parasites and disease. It was an ill omen, he thought. But he went through his usual superstitious rituals to persuade the gods to look elsewhere for their amusement, and spare him from mischief.

At break of day, as he prepared to rest in his cave, he thought all would be well. For the night was over, nothing else too bad had happened (apart from the stone that landed on his head after some idiotic, juvenile bat youkai dropped it on him just for the fun of it), and once he lay down to rest for the daylight hours, surely all the bad vibes would go away.

That, at least, was what he hoped – until the fluffy white taiyoukai came crashing into the cave at dawn, all blazing temper and flying fur, claws spitting poison, pinning him by the throat to the wall of rock at the back of his den with one hand.

"Where is that damnable traitor Kinrin?" the inu taiyoukai demanded with a ferocious snarl that told the lizard demon he would tolerate no waffling.

Kimidori had fervently hoped never to see this demon again, after an exceedingly unpleasant encounter two years ago, but here he was, right in his face, every inch as mean as before.

"Kinrin?" he squeaked as the claws threatened to discharge into his bloodstream venom it might take a century to clear from his body, if ever. "I haven't set eyes on him in a year – I haven't even detected his _scent_ in a year! And I certainly stopped meeting him after the dragons turned on him!"

The pale hand now lifted him off his feet, and he clutched the taiyoukai's arm desperately, panicking as he got the distinct feeling that he would be decapitated as a result of his neck's inability to support the entire weight of his body. Decapitation was a real pain in the… well, a real pain in the neck. Reattaching one's head wasn't always an easy business, even for a reasonably strong demon like himself, and sometimes it refused to go back on right.

"He turned against your clan to seek power with the dragons, then he betrayed the dragons by attempting to steal power through sorcery, yet you still shield him?" the dog demon growled, tightening his grip on his throat. "Unless you want my poisons slowly eating you up from inside for the next few hundred years, I would suggest that you tell me at once where he is."

"Sesshomaru, I swear I do not know where he is. I used to be close to him, but he is no longer my friend!"

One claw released a single drop of poison into his neck, and the lizard youkai squealed. He looked wildly around for help and noticed, for the first time, two humans at the entrance of the cave, quietly observing the scene. Well, they were obviously not going to help him; in fact, it looked like they were with the dog demon, which was odd, because he loathed humans, didn't he? Maybe they were his pets….

"Tell me where he is," came the demand again. "Or I will make things even more unpleasant for you."

"I don't know where he is, but I know someone who might!" Kimidori hastily confessed in a high-pitched squeak. "There's a young one we call Shiro, whose father associated closely with Kinrin before the dragons attacked him. He may know. I'll take you to him, but you have to promise not to hurt the young one and his family."

"I promise nothing," Sesshomaru growled. "But I do not harm innocents without very good cause. Take me to him now."

"His family lives just a few caves away from mine."

"Move."

Kimidori, with Sesshomaru and the humans on his heels, made his way along the shoreline to another cave. Despite his accurately saying that it was "just a few caves away", it was at quite a distance, because most of the other depressions in the rock face that they passed were too shallow or crumbled to make decent youkai or even animal dens, and did not qualify as proper caves. These lizards were well spaced out, one individual or family group from the other; small wonder no one had come to Kimidori's aid when Sesshomaru attacked him.

The lizard demon stopped outside one of the deeper caves and called for the young one named Shiro.

"Kimidori?" came a voice from the depths of the den. A child lizard demon with whitish scales and pale hair peered out, and finally emerged with his mother hovering protectively behind him, looking suspiciously at the non-reptilian individuals standing behind their neighbour.

"Shiro," Kimidori said, gingerly fingering the spot into which Sesshomaru had injected a drop of poison. "This demon is looking for Kinrin. Do you know where he is?"

Shiro shrank back against his mother at once, and the female demon gripped his shoulders tightly from behind. "We want nothing to do with that creature," she hissed.

Sesshomaru took in the emotions radiating from her and the young lizard, and said quietly: "I am looking for Kinrin to save someone he has abducted, and to prevent him from harming others. Your neighbour tells me that your mate once associated with him. I need to know where he has hidden himself so that I can stop him from hurting anyone else."

"Yes, my mate used to associate with him," the female replied bitterly. "Until he started… _touching_… my son."

Sesshomaru didn't move a hair or change his expression, yet it seemed to Miroku and Sango that he somehow flinched at those words.

"Go on," the taiyoukai said grimly.

"I didn't know what was happening until after the dragons turned on Kinrin – and that was well done of them. My mate continued to meet with him as he recovered from his injuries. He always took Shiro along, until one day Shiro ran away from us. I found him and finally got the whole story about the obscene things Kinrin had tried to do to him, even while bedridden from dragon wounds. I told my father, who confronted my mate. But my mate refused to keep Shiro safe, saying that it would be good for him to be in the employ of a demon who could be very powerful again. My father was enraged. He fought my mate and killed him. We have lived here for nearly a year now, and we hope that filthy creature never finds us."

"You are not well protected here," Sesshomaru said. "These caves are too far from one another. If Kinrin returns to power, he would have no trouble locating your son. You did not know when I confronted Kimidori in his den, did you? Who would know if someone entered yours?"

"My father is often here, although he is away at this time. Besides, no one here would betray us to Kinrin."

"Kimidori was quick to lead me to you as a possible source of information about Kinrin, so I would not be too confident about your security. I want to prevent similar things from happening to other young ones, and possibly worse disasters for entire demon clans, so tell me where he is in order that I may stop him."

Shiro, still pressing against his mother, finally spoke up in a soft voice: "Try the caves further inland."

"How far inland?" Sesshomaru asked.

"There's a network of caverns in the Black Mist Mountain, directly west of here. That was where my father used to take me to see Kinrin when he was recovering from his injuries. He used to rest in one cave, and a human sorcerer he worked with would do spells in another den near it. But I don't know if they are still there. That's all I know."

"That is enough," Sesshomaru said. "I will do all I can to ensure that he never harms anyone again. Kimidori, if you know what is good for you, and do not wish to repeat the experience of two years ago, I would suggest that you keep watch over Shiro whenever his grandfather is not here. I do not care if you have to sleep on the cliff edge to do that."

"But –"

Sesshomaru shot him a killer glare, and Kimidori caved in at once. "All right, all right – just please don't rip off my head again."

The taiyoukai turned away without giving him an assurance or answer, leaving Miroku and Sango to follow and wonder what had happened two years ago to make Sesshomaru rip off Kimidori's head, and how he had reattached it – or perhaps regrown it? Could lizard youkai do that?

But this was not the time to ask Sesshomaru to satisfy their curiosity about old spats or lizard youkai biology, for he looked as grim as death, and the monk and taijiya too were worried about what Inuyasha could have suffered over the last five days.

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Sesshomaru cursed himself for what must have been the hundredth time since he had rushed towards the sound of the kitsune's cries of terror in the forest, recognising his scent at once and knowing immediately that something bad must have happened to make him venture into a strange place alone, so far from his friends.

He had known, even before Shippo told him, that it had to do with Inuyasha. For if it had been some other urgent matter, it would have been Inuyasha himself who would have come to find him, not the kit.

He cursed himself for not heeding his instincts when he had felt uneasy about Inuyasha days ago. So what if he had been mistaken, and Inuyasha had been safe and well, and grown even more disgusted with him for stalking him like an obsessed lover? That should not have stopped him from checking on him. The important thing was to ensure his safety and protect him, and he had failed to do that.

The Black Mist Mountain was visible in the distance, and Ah-Un sped towards it with the fire neko in tow, but to Sesshomaru, it seemed a million miles away.

_Be strong,_ he thought, willing courage to Inuyasha. _There are not many things I would give my life to defend, but they are all precious to me – our father's legacy; my honour; Rin; and you, my brother. You, Inuyasha, may even be the most precious of all – yet I may have lost you. _

How little he knew Inuyasha, to ignore so strong a sense of unease, misreading genuine danger for something less. He would never allow that to happen again once he recovered the lad. If he recovered him.


	18. When honour's at the stake

Chapter XVIII: _When honour's at the stake_

_Be strong._

He heard Sesshomaru's voice in his head. _I'm trying_, he thought in response, gritting his teeth as he pressed up against the cage bars, stretching his right arm out as far as it would go. _Believe me,_ _I'm trying._

He had snapped out of his pessimism after that nap throughout which he had clutched Sesshomaru's undershirt for comfort. It had been the first sleep he had sunk naturally into in this cave without the assistance of magic, and it made him feel a lot better.

After donning the undershirt, pulling the outer layers back on over it and securing everything, he got down to the business of getting out of this kami-forsaken place.

That was how he had come to have spent what he estimated to be the last four hours with his entire right arm pushed out through the bars. The sorcerer had not been in the den at all during that time, and there was no sign of Kinrin. Those two were obviously in the very last stages of planning their revenge on the dragons.

Since Tatsuya had lowered the strength of the spells imbuing the cage bars and slabs, Inuyasha had felt stronger, and he wanted to try out a theory of his – that the magic extended mainly to the interior of the cage, and did not radiate outwards quite as much, especially after being toned down. Perhaps if he stuck an arm outside the cage for as long as possible, some of the spells' effects on that arm, or least the hand at the very end of it, would be reduced? It was a bit of a long shot, but he had to try.

Tetsusaiga was still in the corner of the den where it had rested when his clothes were dumped there as well; it now lay alone on the floor, still and silent. Inuyasha kept reaching out in its direction, willing it to respond to him. His hope that it would work was founded on that incident many moons ago, when Sesshomaru still wanted to kill him and take Tetsusaiga, and had successfully grasped its hilt by tacking on a human limb to the stump of his arm. As the sword had been fooled by a borrowed limb back then, perhaps Inuyasha could convince it to react to just one hand that was free of the cage spells, even if the rest of his half-demon strength was still blocked?

He heard footsteps. Damn. Tatsuya was back. As the door pushed open, Inuyasha pulled his arm back into the cage and pretended to be just lying down quietly. Tatsuya glanced at him, picked up something from his worktable, and left the den again.

At once, he threw his arm back out through the bars and extended his fingers towards where Tetsusaiga rested, across the cave. "Tetsusaiga," he murmured. "Come on, Tetsusaiga."

At long last, the sword twitched.

"That's it. Come on, I'm right here, Tetsusaiga!"

It twitched again, then began to turn its hilt towards Inuyasha.

"It's me, Tetsusaiga. Come to me!"

At that, the weapon forged from his father's fang and his own responded, unsheathing itself in a smooth motion and slicing through the air close to the ground to thrust its hilt into Inuyasha's waiting hand.

Better yet, it flared to life. It didn't grow to its full size, but that was just as well for now. Working quickly before the cage spells started to weaken the sword itself, Inuyasha pulled it inside, grasped both the hilt and the back of the blade, and drove it against the bars as hard as he could within that limited space. Tetsusaiga's strength flowed into him, and he felt the bars give as he attacked them. He was making an awful noise, and the sorcerer was sure to come running any second now – but it was working. The cage was cracking, the slab above coming loose.

One last push, a final crack, and that was it – he was out!

Inuysha shoved the slab aside and clambered free of the cage that had been his prison for days. He hurried across the room, snatched up Tetsusaiga's sheath, then positioned himself as far away from the cage and the holding area and anything else that seemed imbued with demon-suppressing magic as he could, giving himself a few seconds to catch his breath, find his legs, recover more strength, listen for footsteps and sniff the air for the scent of anyone approaching.

Tatsuya's human ears might not have picked up the din, but surely Kinrin wouldn't have missed the noise. Or maybe he was too preoccupied… ah, no, someone was coming, and it smelt like the sorcerer.

Inuyasha's limbs were still weak and stiff from having been cramped in that cage for so long, and he had not regained anything close to his normal powers, but the fever was gone, and his confidence was boosted by the fact that Tetsusaiga remained in its transformed state. That meant the strength was starting to return to his body. So he planted himself in the middle of the den, not bothering to hide.

Tatsuya rushed in, his eyes going first to the broken, empty cage, then to the red-clad hanyou standing tall in the den near the worktable, wielding his enormous sword. His eyes widened.

"You –" he began, before quickly determining that words were useless here, and he had to cast a spell before everything went south. He directed a blast of magic at the hanyou from the end of his staff, but Inuyasha dodged it, and charged at him. Another blast was parried away by the sword, which wavered a little from its contact with the demon-suppressing magic, but flared strongly back again.

As much as he detested Tatsuya and his dark sorcery, Inuyasha figured that directing any of Tetsusaiga's arsenal of mighty techniques at one single human being would be overkill, so as he raced up to the man, whose face was rapidly distorting with terror, he settled for bashing him over the head with the hilt of his sword and giving him a hard kick in the nuts just for the pleasure of it. Tatsuya fell to the ground, groaning.

"You pathetic… sicko… pimp…!" Inuyasha punctuated his words with kicks to the man's ribs. "Pandering… to that repulsive… freak…!"

Tatsuya was practically unconscious from the pain, but Inuyasha dealt him one last kick in the belly, before wondering if he should kill him on the spot, or leave him alive so he could hunt him down later and torture him for days. _No, killing him when he's unconscious on the ground like this is way too cold-blooded even for me,_ he concluded. _I'll get him later._

He pulled the den door open and started looking for a way out. What greeted his eyes was a network of routes and caverns, not the slightest hint of daylight anywhere. A single lighted torch sat in a holder beside the den door, and Inuyasha guessed it was what Tatsuya used for light to see by as he navigated the dark passageways.

He himself did not need it for illumination, but he had another use for it. He put out the flame in a puddle of liquid formed by water dripping from the roof of the space he stood in, and jammed the now-unlit torch through the outer handle of the door and across the rock face. As the door opened inwards, that would make it hard if not impossible for Tatsuya to get out of the den that way once he regained consciousness.

Using his nose, he tried to find a passageway that would lead him towards open air, and away from Kinrin, with whom he was not in any condition yet to do battle. The air smelt fresher to his left, so he followed the passages in that direction, keeping close to the walls.

A fork in the path gave him pause, as there was no discernible difference between the air quality of each route. His sense of smell wasn't at peak strength yet, so perhaps some detail was escaping him, but he couldn't sit around forever to wait for his nose to kick into full throttle. He chose one and ventured along its curving route.

Some way down it, he stopped to check his surroundings, holding Tetsusaiga before him, for he had a creepy feeling that he wasn't alone, although he could smell absolutely nothing other than stone, dirt, damp and himself.

He went cautiously round the next bend – but no amount of caution could save him from getting the fright of his life to suddenly come face-to-face with Kinrin, standing there in the passageway, arms folded, lips twisted in a smirk, green eyes glittering. He wasn't even armed. He wore a breastplate and haramaki over his gold-scaled torso, but had no sword; he evidently didn't think he needed one against Inuyasha.

"Did you think it would be that easy to escape me, my little one?" the reptile demon asked, his voice bubbling with condescension as the hanyou stepped backwards.

His mirthful tone made Inuyasha's hackles rise, and he stopped backing away. "I'm not your 'little one', freak!" he growled, leaping forward and swinging Tetsusaiga at him.

Kinrin clucked, shaking his head, dodging the attack easily. "Oh dear, who taught you how to wield a sword? He should be strapped to a boulder and whipped. I could teach you _so_ much more if you stay with me and be very nice."

"Bullshit," Inuyasha muttered, swinging his sword and missing again, realising that he could barely smell Kinrin even now, probably because the demon was masking his scent with magic. He felt awkward and clumsy. His body was stiff from his imprisonment, but he knew that even at full strength, his unrefined moves would probably still make him look like a lumbering bull beside Kinrin's silky reptilian motions.

He was, however, nothing if not dogged. Remembering that Sesshomaru's far-superior swordplay and combat techniques had not saved him from serious injury at his hands in the past encouraged him to think that he could fend off Kinrin, if not succeed in doing some damage.

He lunged a few more times at the demon, observed the moves he made, and used that well-schooled reptile mindset against him. Feinting with his sword to Kinrin's left and seeing the demon glide complacently to his right, Inuyasha swung his left leg up and dealt him a massive kick in the jaw.

Kinrin staggered back, but the surprise written all over his face was quickly replaced by dangerous excitement. He clicked his jaw back into place and drawled: "So, you want to play dirty, do you? We can arrange to do that in a much more amusing way!"

The demon flowed towards him like a stream of golden air, slithering around him and seizing him from behind. One hand yanked his head backwards by his hair, close to the neck; the other seized his throat, and a sharp kick to the back of his legs forced him to his knees. But Inuyasha wasn't done yet. He turned Tetsusaiga back and drove it right through Kinrin's belly, despite the haramaki.

Kinrin, however, was made of scarier stuff than he'd thought, for when Inuyasha tried to force the Tetsusaiga upwards to slice his body in two, the sword remained jammed where it was. The demon did not flinch or weaken as he pushed himself even more deeply onto the blade of the massive fang, and bent his head to speak into Inuyasha's ear: "It will take more than getting hacked through with a sword to stop me, my little pet – I've been through far worse and made it back."

His grip tightened on Inuyasha's hair and throat, and the hanyou started to choke, stuck where he was, unable to drive the Tetsusaiga in any direction – unless it was to pull it back out.

"Ahh..." Kinrin murmured. "This sword is imparting some curious sensations to me. Oh – can it really be? I feel it now that it's in me – _this _is the sword that slew Ryukotsusei, isn't it? Is _that_ who you are, my wild little thing? The hanyou we all heard rumours about, who killed the mighty Ryukotsusei – the half-demon son of the great Inu no Taisho? Ryukotsusei's death brought me to where I am now, so it's fate, my dear. It's fate that you are now in my hands – _you_ set all this in motion, and now you're mine. What a prize you are...."

Inuyasha, gasping for air, spat out his reply: "I'm not yours, moron, and I never will be." He swiftly pulled Tetsusaiga out of Kinrin's belly and swung it back at him again, aiming for his head this time. Perhaps Kinrin's head was more vulnerable than his body, or he did not want to deal with too many serious injuries at the same time, but the move dislodged his hand from his throat, allowing Inuyasha to twist around and try to struggle back to his feet.

That was when he knew that he should have killed Tatsuya when he'd had the chance, for the sorcerer appeared before them in the corridor, probably having utilised one of his portal spells, and smashed the end of his staff into the side of Inuyasha's head. The hanyou, dazed, could not prevent the staff from then knocking Tetsusaiga out of his hands.

"My den – now!" Kinrin ordered, still gripping Inuyasha's hair. Tatsuya immediately sent all three of them through a portal into another cave, where he clapped a collar around Inuyasha's throat, pushed him to the ground, and secured him by a short length of chain to a metal ring embedded in the rock floor, beside a pile of furs and skins. The chain was so short that he could not even sit up.

_More magic_, Inuyasha told himself through the pain in his head. _They've chained me up again with the same filthy magic. In what looks like Kinrin's bedroom. Shit._

He lay there knowing that he would not be able to break the chain and collar even if he tried, not without breaking his own neck, at any rate. But his fighting spirit was back, and he was determined not to go down without giving these bastards something to remember him by. He would just have to find the opportunity to inflict some damage.

"Leaving that sword in the same den as his cage was a stupid move," he heard Kinrin telling Tatsuya. The sorcerer looked resentful and still in considerable pain from the beating Inuyasha had given him. "Why didn't you lock it up?"

"I didn't think…"

"Exactly. You didn't think. You so often don't. Now go back to your workroom and get the potions ready for sending out. What are you using to distribute them?"

"I'll create some rudimentary shikigami and send them into dragon territory."

"Get going and get it done. I want to know that my enemies will soon be turning on each other in rage and madness, not knowing why they are tearing their own loved ones apart."

Dismissed, Tatsuya turned on his heel and left, his face as black as night, but not before giving Inuyasha a threatening look. _I'll get you once you no longer amuse him, just you wait, _that look seemed to say.

Inuyasha couldn't bring himself to be concerned about the sorcerer now, not when his immediate problem was a demon who had indicated by word and deed that he was set on violating him in every way imaginable.

"I had Tatsuya prepare that chain and collar for you yesterday," Kinrin said now, turning back towards him when they were alone. "I wanted them ready so that you could be secured here in my den once the potions I selected for specific dragon families were mixed to my precise requirements. They're mixed, and here you are. I'd thought of preparing more cuffs and chains to hold your legs and hands down as well, but that wouldn't be very challenging for me, would it? Taking you chained down to the ground, spreadeagled?"

"Come near me and I'll tear your guts out," Inuyasha snarled, a little more loudly than he had wanted to. He was afraid, he really was, but he'd be damned if he was going to show it.

"I don't think so," Kinrin said. "You can't fight the spells in that collar. They work better than those for the cage. As long as you wear that collar, no part of you will have its half-demon strength. And you can't overcome the magic keeping me stronger than I have ever been. Once I have destroyed those dragons, I'll rule the scaled youkai. Then I'll destroy all the other youkai lords from the rest of the tribes – including the one I smell on your clothes. I remember that scent now – it's been a long time since I encountered him, but I should have remembered it – your father's other son, Sesshomaru, is it not? When he and the others are all dead you'll appreciate me, won't you? You'll even crawl to me willingly for my favour because you'll have no one else to protect you then."

"Dream on, freak," the hanyou spat.

Kinrin laughed in answer to that, in the manner of one who believed he held the world in his hands and could afford to humour the impotent rantings of lesser creatures. "I'm just going to sit here and enjoy the sight of you sprawled on the ground, chained up beside my bed, while I get rid of all this blood – you've made such a mess of my haramaki and my flesh – I should really make you lick it all off, but I don't think you're tame enough for such duties yet."

He undid his breastplate and haramaki, examined the rent in his sleeveless vest made by the Tetsusaiga, and shook his head at the blood all over it. "What a mess." As he removed the armour, his youki and scent filled the den.

_So that's how he escapes detection,_ Inuyasha thought. _Through magic-drenched armour._

Kinrin peeled one of the furs off the pile beside Inuyasha, tossed it towards the far side of the den, and went over to plant himself on it, but not before picking up a few tiny jars from a chest in the corner of the den. Hanging on the wall above the chest was a demon blade, which Inuyasha could tell was as well-forged as any that Totosai might have made. The only light in the den came from a small flame in a lamp that looked to be of foreign origin. Kinrin did not need it to see by; Inuyasha could only guess that he must have prepared it so that his prisoner, when deprived of his half-demon powers, would be able to see him.

As he reclined on the fur in his blood-soaked clothes and uncorked one of the jars, Kinrin said: "This is made from the concentrated extracts of your despair. It revives me when I've been working too hard, or when my old injuries trouble me. There's nothing worse than dragon venom for flaring up over and over again after you think you've got it under control, but these potions really help. Tatsuya is a genius. I should treat him better, shouldn't I? Tell you what, I'll have you watch us the next time I let him into my bed – you'll see how he works to please me then. You might learn something."

"That's all you seem capable of spewing – filth and crap and more filth and crap," Inuyasha told him. "Bet that's what I'll find inside you when I rip your guts open – a sewer."

"You _did_ just rip my guts open, and the wound is healing fine, thank you."

Kinrin drank from the uncorked vessel, and a change came over his face. Inuyasha had seen that look on the faces of humans who were addicted to one substance or another, after they got a fresh dose of what they craved. It sickened him to think that a demon strong enough to withstand being impaled by Tetsusaiga would resort to a crutch like drugs.

"Perfect," Kinrin murmured, inhaling the scent of the potion from the vessel between sips. "Do you want to know what it feels like to be exposed to this, if you aren't capable of ingesting it like I am? To me, it's a treat. To you, it would feel quite different. Here, let me give you a taste of your own medicine."

He poured out a few drops of the potion into his palm, walked over to Inuyasha, and sprinkled them into his face.

Inuyasha gasped, for the effect of those few drops was immediate. It felt as if a tsunami of misery and pain had smashed full into his body, spirit, mind and soul, and would wash him into the depths of hell. Every feeling of hope and belief that it would all somehow turn out right was swept out of him at once, and his body went limp as a sea of darkness poured into him.

"Nice, isn't it? That's the strength of these potions. You can imagine what entire jars of wrath and hatred and self-loathing will do to my enemies when Tatsuya's little spirits splash them all over their territories. I've only given you a tiny taster – don't fret, the effect will wear off in just a moment. But while you're still in its grip, let's get these cumbersome clothes off you – why cover up such a beautiful body?"

Inuyasha lay there, unresisting and drowning in despair, as Kinrin began to undo his robe.

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As Tatsuya conjured up simple shikigami to transport the potions into the territories of the ruling dragon clans, he swore under his breath. That accursed half-breed had brought even more trouble to him now, escaping and making Kinrin-sama blame him – his most loyal Tatsuya – for it. Not to mention almost kicking him to death – he was sure those ribs right there under his hand were broken. He would have to use so much energy later on healing them with his magic.

The night before, as Tatsuya had set up the collar and chain in Kinrin's den, he had suggested to the demon that there was no need to keep the hanyou for long, as he had collected enough emotions from him to last for ages, and if Kinrin-sama wanted to have his fun with him for a while, he should, then he ought to kill him and dispose of the body, or release him. For Tatsuya was concerned about what sort of friends the half-breed had. They were individuals or a group clever enough to trap his ghost child, and Kinrin had confirmed that the scent on the hanyou's clothing was that of a very powerful demon. He didn't want trouble from them.

But Kinrin had refused. He was going to keep him as long as he amused him, he'd said, and hoped that would be for a long time.

Tatsuya grumbled to himself, wondering how long he would have to wait for this latest infatuation with a cute young creature to wear off before Kinrin grew sweet to him again. He didn't have that many years of youth left, even counting in what his magic could do to preserve it, and he wondered how much longer Kinrin would find him even passably attractive.

He folded up his last shikigami paper, groaning as the pain from Inuyasha's assault on him shot through his sides and groin again, then completed the spell and transformed the folded sheets into simple spirits that he sealed specific instructions into, giving them the scents of their targets from items he and Kinrin had stolen from the ruling dragons by one means or another, giving them directions to the dragon territories, and placing in their hands large jars of potion meant for each individual or family.

He sent them on their way, and sat back to sulk over being sidelined once again by yet another plaything of Kinrin's, thinking: _I hope Kinrin makes him scream for days. I'll enjoy hearing that. _

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As Ah-Un and Kirara bore their riders swiftly towards the Black Mist Mountain, the potion-bearing shikigami flew out from a cave that opened into the towering natural structure of stone and springs and scattered vegetation growing patchily from what little soil had collected in its crevices.

"Shikigami!" Miroku called the others' attention to the nine spirits in the air. "They're carrying potions! But we used up all our barrier spells on the apparition – I have nothing left to immobilise them with."

"Can we take them down?" Sango asked.

"We can, but I'm afraid of what will happen if the vessels break on the ground below. Is this place inhabited?"

"It is," Sesshomaru said. "Don't risk it. Those potions must be meant for the dragons, considering Kinrin's history with them. This must have been what he was gathering so many ingredients for."

"Does that suit your purpose, Sesshomaru-sama?" Miroku asked. "The dragons are not your friends."

"They are not," Sesshomaru answered. "But a power vacuum does not suit my present purposes either. If the ruling dragons destroy themselves, the lesser clans will rush for power, and half the other youkai tribes will fight over their territories. That kind of chaos in the demon world spreading across so many lands, through so many tribes, will do no one any good."

Sesshomaru then said to the kappa behind him: "Jaken, take Ah-Un and go quickly to Ryuhi the swordsmith in the west. Tell him that Kinrin and a sorcerer have sent shikigami to poison the ruling dragons with potions. Ah-Un should be able to overtake these spirits, and Ryuhi himself can fly fast enough. Let him and his disciples deal with them with their own magic. Remain at Ryuhi's forge once you have delivered your message so that Ah-Un can rest. He will have done too much flying by then."

Sesshomaru jumped off the dragon's back, ordered Jaken and Ah-Un to hurry, and sped through the air towards the cave from which the shikigami had emerged.

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Tatsuya sank into another bout of resentment as he tidied his worktable. His biggest job was done. The plan he and Kinrin had worked on for so long had been executed, and he should have been celebrating with him. Instead, his master was having fun with the irksome half-breed.

This was most unsatisfactory, he reflected. He'd truly had no end of trouble since his ghost child had picked up that savage creature's emotions. He glared at the sword he had retrieved from the passageway in which Kinrin had tackled the hanyou, and wished he had locked it up in a chest. In fact, he would do that right now.

He got up, wincing at the pain in his side, and picked up the unsheathed weapon. But just as he headed towards a chest big enough to hold it, his day rapidly deteriorated.

For the den door slammed open, and a monk stood in the entrance. _What's a monk doing here?_ was all he had time to ask himself before the man uttered a swift chant, covered the ground between them in a warrior's gliding move, and rendered the spell he was invoking useless with a rattling blow from his shakujou. Another blow, and his staff went flying across the room.

Tatsuya crumbled to the ground, more from shock than anything, although the shakujou had probably broken another two of his ribs. As he was thinking about hacking the monk's legs from under him with a swing of the demon blade he held, a terrifying figure, ghostly white splashed with blood-red, wearing more fur than forty snow foxes, swept into the den, flew at him, lifted him up by his throat and slammed him down onto his worktable, making him drop the sword.

"Where is my brother?" it snarled. "That is his sword. What have you done with him?"

"You won't find him – my magic has hidden him well," Tatsuya said defiantly, although the cruel golden eyes, the stripes over those regal cheekbones and the mark of the crescent moon on his forehead struck fear into his heart.

"He was here. His scent is in this cave –" The demon broke off as he sniffed the air, then with a sudden growl that rumbled with fury, picked Tatsuya up and hurled him against the far wall, from where he crashed like a stone onto the broken cage.

With a move so quick the sorcerer could not track it with his eyes, the demon flew over to him, closed the fingers of one hand round his neck, and demanded in an eerily calm voice filled with the threat of a slow and painful death: "Did you use your contemptible magic to keep my brother in this cage? Is that why this disgusting object is saturated with his scent? You will pay for that. Where is that bastard Kinrin?"

Tatsuya felt a bone in his neck crack, and he suddenly wondered why he was doing this, why he remained loyal to a demon who treated him like a stopgap for times when no one else amusing enough was around to warm his bed, why he should have spent so many years of his short life pandering to someone who didn't appreciate him. Why wasn't Kinrin here to protect him from these creatures? Where was he? Having fun with someone else, as always.

Another bone cracked, and that was the last straw. Tatsuya finally whispered: "Kinrin has him in his den. I chained him up in there just a while ago."


	19. He's mine, or I am his

Chapter XIX: _He's mine, or I am his_

Falling into the bottomless pit would be so easy. Better, in some ways, than struggling to climb out of it from where he was. He couldn't fight this. It was hopeless. No one would ever find him here. It would be less painful to let go and drop into the abyss. Maybe there would be a tunnel down there, from which he could make his way back up and out through a less agonising route…

_I want you to be strong,_ Sesshomaru's voice came at him through the darkness.

_So do I. But how? _he asked.

He heard no answer in words, but his readiness to answer that voice in his head strengthened his spirit. He looked up, out of the abyss, and reached for another handhold above his head. Something was poking him in the side. _What is that? A tree root? A rock?_ He was somehow able to keep clinging to the wall of the pit while freeing a hand to grasp the object prodding him in the ribs, and he realised from the feel of it that it was Tetsusaiga's scabbard.

And of course he could free a hand to grasp it while clinging to the wall of rock… because the wall was horizontal now… and he was lying on it… and some creep was fiddling with his hakama ties. That gold-hued pervert was standing above him, having already loosened and parted his upper garments while he was lost in the darkness of his own mind. Now he was messing with his hakama while pawing at his crotch, and Tetsusaiga's empty scabbard had come loose from its tie in the process and been shoved under his ribs.

Inuyasha tightened his grip on the scabbard, which Kinrin could not see his left hand closing over, because he had opened the left lapel of the fire rat suikan over the hanyou's arm. As the demon undid the last knot on the hakama, Inuyasha snapped into action, thrusting the scabbard into the healing wound that Tetsusaiga had opened in Kinrin's body earlier.

He was gratified to hear the demon bellow in pain this time – the magic-soaked armour he had been wearing earlier when Tetsusaiga pierced his torso must have prevented him from feeling pain. But the armour was off now, and this was hurting him. _Good_, Inuyasha thought grimly, keeping the scabbard jammed into the wound at an angle and holding Kinrin off. _Even if I die for this, I'm glad I got to hurt him at least once._

He had no more than mortal strength at this time, but his determination to deliver a serious blow or two to the enemy, even if he could not ultimately defeat him, lent him speed and focus, and he reached up with his other hand into the hole the scabbard had reopened, and tore a chunk of golden flesh out of it with his claws.

Kinrin gasped, swung a fist at Inuyasha's head, and almost cracked the hanyou's skull, but Inuyasha refused to release the scabbard. As he saw another blow coming at him, he instinctively flinched, but it never landed – for a whip pulled the golden arm back, nearly ripping the scaly hand off its wrist.

_Sesshomaru._

The taiyoukai stood in the cave entrance, eyes glowing red with rage as they took in the scene in the den: Inuyasha chained up and half-undressed, beaten and bruised, but with Tetsusaiga's scabbard shoved into the dragon-lizard's body; and Kinrin standing over him, knuckles marked with the blood of the one whose body he straddled. The fury simmering beneath the taiyoukai's pale surface was as hot as molten metal, tempered only by a moment's softness as he saw that Inuyasha was alive and kicking.

_You're here._

The fleeting gentleness passed as the dog demon refocused his stare on the creature who had seized his brother. "For this," Sesshomaru snarled, "you will die."

That was all the warning he gave as he launched himself at the golden demon, who stood rooted to the spot, held by the scabbard. Sesshomaru's claws ripped Kinrin's scalp half off his head; tufts of long green hair flew, and blood flowed down the reptile's face and neck.

Inuyasha yanked the scabbard out of Kinrin's body and scrambled aside, as far as the short chain would allow. Kinrin staggered under Sesshomaru's assault, but regained his footing sufficiently to leap over to the wall upon which his sword hung, and snatch it from its holder.

"So here at last is the great Sesshomaru – he _is_ the one I smelt on you, is he not, half-breed?" he sneered, speaking to Inuyasha but keeping his eyes fixed on the taiyoukai closing in on him. "He's finally come to claim you, has he? That's just as well. I'll kill him here and now so you'll know you're mine and mine alone."

"Shut your filthy mouth!" Sesshomaru growled, unsheathing Bakusaiga and forcing Kinrin to the ground with a swift attack.

The dragon-lizard held him off with his blade, got in a kick to Sesshomaru's chest that pushed the taiyoukai off him, and jumped back onto his feet. Already, the wounds he had sustained from Tetsusaiga's scabbard and the two dog demons' claws had stopped bleeding. He moved towards Inuyasha, but Sesshomaru headed him off and another fierce clash of blades ensued.

Inuyasha yanked at the chain holding him to the ground, desperate to free himself so that he wouldn't be in Sesshomaru's way, or be a distraction. As the two demons battled on the far side of the den, another figure appeared in the doorway, and his heart leaped to see that it was Miroku.

The look on the monk's face spoke volumes of relief at finding Inuyasha largely unharmed. He rushed over and worked quickly to undo the spells that gave the collar and chain their power. As Inuyasha knotted his hakama ties back in place, he felt the magic release him from its hold, and with his friend's help, snapped the chain and opened the collar.

"Are you all right? Let's get you out of here," Miroku said urgently, putting an arm round Inuyasha while keeping one eye on the ferocious fight going on a few feet away.

"Miroku – I'm fine," Inuyasha said. But as he stood up, he found that he needed to lean on his friend.

The monk walked him out into the passageway, where a lit torch was jammed into a hole in the wall, illuminating the figure of Sango holding Tatsuya in a death-grip. The sorcerer was bound, and gagged too, to prevent him from uttering any spells.

"Sango," Inuyasha breathed, delighted to see another very familiar, much-loved face – especially when the woman that face belonged to looked ready to kick the life out of the trussed-up sorcerer whose neck was jammed between her elbow and the edge of her hiraikotsu.

"Inuyasha – thank the gods," Sango gasped, breaking into a smile. "Tetsusaiga's here with me."

"Thank you," he said, as Miroku carefully slid the blade out of his wife's sash, and returned the sword to him.

"Ahhhh – out of the way!" the monk abruptly yelled, dragging Inuyasha along and nudging Sango back as Kinrin was hurled out of the den by Sesshomaru, taking a large portion of rock beside the doorway with him, to slam into the passageway wall near them.

Sesshomaru leaped after him, Bakusaiga flashing in the firelight. He aimed his blade at Kinrin's heart, but his adversary scuttled aside, and the blade sliced off a chunk of upper-arm flesh and muscle instead, provoking a howl of agony from the reptile demon. The powers of the Bakusaiga ensured that that wound would not start to heal.

"Damn you, dog!" Kinrin bellowed. "I'll exterminate your tribe and all others, once I'm done with the dragons."

"The dragons have been alerted to your plot. You will harm no one from this day on."

This was obviously news to Tatsuya too, for the sorcerer groaned under his gag and sagged in Sango's grip. The taijiya kneed him in the back to force him upright again, muttering curses that would have made Inuyasha grin in any other situation, for it was nice to know that someone besides himself thought the man was a lower life form than a piece of scum from a stagnant pond.

But the battle between the two demons was their present concern. Upon hearing that the dragons had been warned, Kinrin gave a cry of rage and attacked Sesshomaru so wildly that the taiyoukai was driven several feet back along the corridor. "Curse you for interfering!" he yelled. "Have a taste of _this_!" From his obi he whipped out a potion bottle, which he hurled to the ground at Sesshomaru's feet.

The taiyoukai jumped back as the porcelain bottle smashed, but he received a good dose of the substance. Inuyasha could see the effects of it on him at once – he did not do anything so inelegant as to shake his head, but the way he turned his head to one side and slowed his movements told the hanyou that he was attempting to clear his mind and body of the sense of despair that threatened to overwhelm him.

"Move back – keep away from the fumes!" Inuyasha warned Miroku and Sango, directing them further down the passageway, far from the broken bottle. To his brother, he called: "Sesshomaru! It's just concentrated emotions – don't let it get to you!"

But Sesshomaru's movements had slowed so much that he came across as disoriented, almost blinded by the fumes, and Kinrin advanced on him, declaring in mocking tones: "You arrogant dog. I'll cut you down and chain you up for two thousand years. You'll watch as I take your beloved half-breed again and again for as long as it pleases me. He'll be mine until the day he dies!"

Sesshomaru froze. Inuyasha, weak as he felt, was on the verge of jumping into the fray when he stopped himself, somehow knowing in a second that the stillness that had descended on his brother's entire being was not the paralysis of despair or fear, but the stillness of certainty and strength. And as Kinrin raised his sword and brought it down in a ferocious sweep, the taiyoukai effortlessly stopped the blade dead with the Bakusaiga.

A chilling calm came over the dog demon's features even as his eyes blazed red again, boring into Kinrin's soul, and he stated coldly: "Inuyasha is not yours, and he never will be."

With that, Sesshomaru pressed Kinrin back, forced his opponent's sword-arm down, and lifted Bakusaiga for a split-second, only to drive it down with such power onto the other blade that Kinrin's weapon shattered, and the dragon-lizard dropped it. Then Sesshomaru thrust Bakusaiga into Kinrin's belly and drew the blade to his right, slicing him almost in two and severing his spine.

The demon dropped to the ground, a broken heap of bloodied flesh and scales, but incredibly, still alive. Sesshomaru had the Bakusaiga poised over his chest to end it all when Kinrin gave a short laugh and spoke in barely audible tones: "So. He's yours, is he?"

The amber hues had returned to Sesshomaru's eyes, and they flashed with a powerful emotion when Kinrin spoke. He visibly wrestled with the emotion and brought it under control before answering: "Inuyasha determines his own destiny."

"What an adorable name – I never asked him for his name. I never even got to see what he looked like as a human. How does he look, Sesshomaru? As pretty as when he's a hanyou?"

Inuyasha stared in disbelief as he listened to this insane creature expending his dying breath asking stupid questions. _You'd think his last words would make a hell of a lot more sense than that,_ he thought. _Maybe he's been stark raving mad all along._

But Sesshomaru seemed to think the questions worth answering, except that his answer was: "You will never have the right or privilege to know that. Consider that while you rot in hell."

With that, he drove Bakusaiga through the demon's heart, rupturing it beyond repair and terminating that eventful life. With the tip of his blade, he sliced the heart out of the body, dropped it onto the ground, then coolly wiped his blade on a clean patch of Kinrin's clothes and sheathed it before turning to Inuyasha and the humans. Tatsuya was wailing under his gag at Kinrin's death, but no one paid him a blind bit of attention.

"Are you all right?" Sesshomaru asked Inuyasha, the second he locked onto his brother's wide-eyed golden gaze, which had not lost any of its fire. It was clear from the way Sesshomaru searched that gaze that if he had found those precious amber-gold eyes at all dulled or dimmed by irreparable damage to the hanyou's spirit, he would have revived Kinrin with the Tenseiga and proceeded to skin the reptile alive.

"I'm fine," he replied.

"Your head – it's bleeding."

"It's healing. I'm perfectly well."

"Are you certain?" Sesshomaru seemed to want to inspect Inuyasha all over for wounds, but was holding back because they were not alone. Miroku and Sango looked desperate to give the brothers privacy, but it was not feasible in the circumstances.

"Those spells knocked the stuffing out of me, and I was sick for a while, _and_ I'm a bit battered, but apart from that I'm fine," Inuyasha assured him. He longed to burrow into Sesshomaru's arms, but Tatsuya's presence was a strong deterrent – it was a contaminant, and he wished to keep the more affectionate moments between himself and his brother, or his friends, from being sullied by having the sorcerer's eyes upon them. So he simply said: "Stop worrying about me. Are _you_ all right after that dose of potion?"

"Yes. Was that made from what they collected from you?"

"I think so."

"Hmm. You are _never_ sitting inside that well again."

That made Inuyasha chuckle, ending the awkwardness for Miroku and Sango. Inuyasha then asked: "So how did you all find me?"

"I'll give you the details later," Miroku told him. "But in brief, we couldn't have done it if Shippo hadn't found Sesshomaru-sama and told him what happened to you, and we wouldn't have known who did it if Sesshomaru-sama hadn't known how to question the apparition, and by the way, I was obliged to remove my clothes to get answers out of that thing – don't ask. I was ready to lay down my life for you, my friend, but I wasn't prepared to have to strip down to my loincloth."

Sango, trying not to giggle as she remembered the look on her husband's face last night, almost loosened her grip on the weeping sorcerer. "I'll tell you all about it," she promised Inuyasha. "But for now, what do we do with this… piece of slime? He's led us to this magic-concealed den, and we know the way back, so I think he's outlived his usefulness."

"As much as I'd love to push him off the mountain, I'm afraid we may have to take him with us," Miroku sighed. "We can't just leave him here, and simply killing him now is rather cold-blooded."

"That was what I thought earlier today," Inuyasha said. "Only to have it come back and whack me in the head. Literally."

"We could lock him in the cage," Sango suggested. "I'm sure we can put it back together well enough to stick him in it for the next five days."

"Let's look into that possibility," Miroku said gleefully. "But before that, I'd like to return to his den and that storage area we passed on the way, to destroy all the potions. They shouldn't be left around for anyone else to make mischief with."

"Good idea," Inuyasha agreed.

Sesshomaru led them down the twisting passageways to a small cave Inuyasha had not seen before, one furnished with wooden shelves and stacked from top to bottom with row upon row of potions in jars, representing years of experimentation and work.

"We can't just pour these away, so if you don't mind, I'll have to use some of my own spells," Miroku explained. "May I suggest that the rest of you move as far away as possible? You may want to sit down. This could take a while."

They took his advice and retreated further down the corridor while the monk spent the next half-hour painting brushstrokes onto slips of paper, then erecting a strong barrier over the mouth of the cave. It was obviously designed to allow him to partially penetrate it, for he pushed his arms through it, holding his shakujou and a bunch of the paper spells, and dispersed the latter throughout the cave. His companions could not clearly see what he did from where they were, but the eventual crash of hundreds of breaking vessels of clay and porcelain told them the result. Miroku then withdrew his arms and staff, cleansed his skin and the shakujou of any fumes that might have settled on them, and reinforced the barrier.

When he turned back to his companions, he looked satisfied. "By the time this shield comes down, the liquid from the bottles should have evaporated off the stone floor, and the fumes will disperse in these passageways," he said. "I will erect another barrier somewhere between this spot and our access point into these mountains, so that no one will wander in by accident and be affected, until everything has dissipated."

Inuyasha muttered: "That bloody lizard fed off this stuff. Are you sure the fumes won't waft right over to his body and resurrect him?"

He spoke casually, but Sesshomaru sensed the fear behind his words and quietly cursed Kinrin all over again. To his brother, he said: "He won't revive. Bakusaiga has made very certain of that."

"Good."

They moved on to the den where Inuyasha had been held in the cage. They found the hanyou clean water to drink and made him rest near the door while Miroku spent an hour carefully checking the numerous materials and containers in the room. In the end, they found only raw ingredients and unprocessed vessels.

"It looks like that fellow didn't keep any of the finished potions in here. These ingredients will dissipate or decay if left to themselves, so we needn't do anything more in this den. I'd really like to stuff that man's bones into the cage, though," Miroku growled, turning to glare at the sorcerer, who was still in pieces after seeing his master killed and his years of work destroyed.

"Or we could turn him over to the dragons," Sesshomaru proposed. "I believe we have company."

They stepped out of the den and looked down the passageway to see Kirara escorting a demon towards them. Inuyasha, Miroku and Sango tensed, but relaxed again when they saw that Sessshomaru was not even reaching for his sword.

"Ryuhi's scent is on you," the taiyoukai said to the newcomer, a female. "Are you one of his disciples?"

The dragon demon immediately displayed her empty hands and bowed politely to show that she meant them no harm. "Yes, Sesshomaru-sama," she said. "Ryuhi is my sensei. My name is Amaya. He sent me here to find out more about the magic potions that you were kind enough to warn us about."

"How did you get here so quickly?" Sesshomaru asked. "My kappa and dragon can only have just reached your territory."

"Our forge is connected by a portal to a sister forge on the edge of the western coastal territories. My sensei sent me and my fellow disciple through it, and from there, it was a short flight to this mountain, which your servant described to us. I'm sorry that we could not bring your dragon and servant back with us, as Ah-Un is far too large for the portal. Your servant would not come with us. He said you had ordered him to remain with Ah-Un, who needs rest."

"That does not matter," Sesshomaru said. "Has your sensei succeeded in stopping the shikigami from scattering the potions?"

"We trapped most of them with our own magic just in time, but unfortunately, we lost one family. The potions made them tear one another apart. A second vessel broke in the cave of another of our leaders, but he was alone. My sensei is trying to calm him while waiting for the effects to wear off. However, we need to know more about neutralising these potions."

"This human can tell you all about them," Sesshomaru said, taking Tatsuya from Sango and holding him out to the dragon demon. "He made them himself, under Kinrin's orders. You may take him with you and question him. My condition for handing him to you is that your tribe is not to use his skills to further its own political ends. I expect to see proof of that once you have the information you need to neutralise the potions. Tell your sensei that."

"I understand, Sesshomaru-sama. My sensei will not betray your trust in him." Amaya took Tatsuya from him, and the look on her face told them that things would not go easy for the man.

The dragon demon had another matter to bring up. "Sesshomaru-sama, what of Kinrin? Shall I report that he is dead, or in your power?"

"He is dead. If your tribe wants his body as evidence, it lies along these passageways deeper in the mountain. We will be sealing the caverns with a barrier before we leave to keep the potion fumes inside, so you will have to take it now, or much later."

"We will take it now," Amaya said, and called down the passageway to her fellow disciple, who had been waiting further up the corridor, closer to the main entrance that led to the network of caverns.

A younger dragon demon appeared, bowed to Sesshomaru's group, took instructions from Amaya, and vanished into the darkness of the corridor. When he reappeared, he was dragging Kinrin's broken body along the ground, bundled into one of the skins from the den.

The group then navigated the passageways until they emerged into open air on the side of the mountain, and the two dragon demons took their leave.

"Can we trust them?" Sango asked Sesshomaru, as the visitors flew away with Tatsuya and Kinrin's corpse.

"We shall see."

"Who is this Ryuhi, anyway?" Inuyasha asked.

"The demon who bred Ah-Un."

"So I suppose he can be trusted? Or is he waiting to get back at you because – oh, I don't know – he ungraciously lost that dragon to you in some gambling session?"

"I? Gamble?" Sesshomaru asked haughtily. "I do not gamble. If I want something, I take it."

Quickly seeing that those words could hit some raw nerves, considering the events of the past few days, the taiyoukai added in a softer voice: "At least I used to at the time I acquired Ah-Un. I don't do that any more. Ryuhi is a story for another day. Now, we must get you back to the village. You're not looking well."

"I told you I'm fine."

"You're feverish. I can tell even from here."

Inuyasha felt his own forehead, but he didn't need to, for he did feel a bit ill again. "Damn, it's back. I thought I'd got rid of it."

"Inuyasha," Miroku said. "Your strength has been suppressed by dark magic for six days. You're not going to brush off its effects just because the spells have been lifted. You have some recuperating to do."

"Keh."

"No 'keh'-ing from you this time," the monk was firm. "It'll be a course of Kaede-sama's herbs and plenty of bed rest for you for the next few days."

"I've only just broken out of that stupid cage after five whole days and a bit, and you want to confine me to bed for more days yet?" the hanyou protested.

"For your good."

"Will you stop fussing? I think I know how to manage –"

"Inuyasha, shut up," Sesshomaru ordered, stepping over to him and touching him for the first time in six days, wrapping his left arm round the backs of his legs, slipping his right firmly round his shoulders, and lifting him into his arms.

"Hey – put me down – Sesshomaru, I can walk just fine! There's no need to – hey, watch it – whoa!" he stopped struggling and clung to his brother's breastplate as the taiyoukai took to the air, followed by Sango and Miroku on Kirara.

Inuyasha looked back at his friends – he had to flatten the mokomoko with his hands just to see past it – and yelled out to them: "Look, can't I ride Kirara? Wouldn't that make more sense?"

"Kirara can only carry two grown-ups!" Miroku shouted in reply. "If _you're _here, then either myself or my wife will be in Sesshomaru-sama's arms, and _that's_ another thing I won't do for you, my friend!"

The hanyou scowled, looked up at his brother and muttered to him: "Can't I just stand next to you and hold on to your armour or something? This is seriously embarrassing. I'm not a _girl_, you know."

"Be still, and sleep," Sesshomaru told him. "You're not well. If I have to hold you like this for days to make sure that you rest, I will do exactly that."

Inuyasha pulled a face and sulked for a few minutes more. But when he looked around him, he supposed it didn't matter, as there was no one up here besides his good friends to see him being carried through the clouds like a child – and if that cheeky pair so much as _breathed_ the words "aww", "sweet" or "cute" with reference to this, he would thump them into next week. He _was _exhausted from his ordeal. The mokomoko was draped around him to keep him warm as they flew and to protect him from the breastplate spikes, and the part of it that curled round Sesshomaru's shoulder was just perfect for resting his head against. Ah well, hadn't he wished only a few hours ago to be right here where he was?

So he gave up sulking, circled Sesshomaru's shoulders with his arms and drew himself up to nuzzle his neck and whisper: "Thank you for coming to get me."

For answer, his brother's embrace tightened around his body, and a kiss was planted on his head.

Inuyasha pulled his arms back into the warmth of the fur, burrowed against Sesshomaru's chest, and allowed himself to relax completely for the first time in days.

:

:

:

"Aww, look at that – that's so _sweet_!" Sango cooed, as she and Miroku flew along behind Sesshomaru and saw Inuyasha's arms going around his brother's neck, although the rest of him was obscured by the mokomoko.

"That _is_ cute," Miroku murmured, feeling inspired by the sight to wrap his arms as intimately around his wife as the hiraikotsu would permit, and fold her high-necked collar down so that he could kiss the soft skin under it.

When she did not protest, it emboldened him to unbutton her collar, working around the obstructive weapon between them, for access to more of her delectable neck and throat. She finally objected when he tried to undo her top altogether, and threatened him with swift ejection from Kirara's back. "We may be up in the clouds, but if you try to undress me any more than you have, you'll be flying really fast – straight down to the ground."

"Sesshomaru will have to catch me then."

"Trust me, he won't bother. You can't even begin to compete with what he's already got in his arms. I swear, Miroku, if some other demon flies past right now and sees me with my clothes flapping open in the wind I will kill you. I love you, but I will _kill_ you."

"To die at your hands would be my greatest honour, if it could be preceded by an entire night of lovemaking, with a promise that you will have conceived my child before the end of that night."

"Oh, shut up. Kirara, if he says one more idiotic thing, turn over, then come and catch me – _just_ me."

"Rrrrreeow."


	20. My heart, concealing it

Chapter XX: _My heart, concealing it_

For the sake of his dignity, Inuyasha was relieved when Sesshomaru agreed to stop in the forest behind the village so that he could transfer to Kirara behind Sango, while Miroku dismounted to walk with Sesshomaru.

But as Kirara soared over the line of trees, he realised how heavy-headed he felt, how carefully his brother had to have been carrying him these past hours, and how warm he had kept him. He accepted at last that he was far more tired and ill than he'd wanted to admit. Even Kirara's brief flight, which ended directly in front of Kaede's hut, left him clinging to Sango's hiraikotsu, forehead pressed to the smooth planes of the large weapon strapped to her back. He would never have managed a journey of a few hours on the fire cat without falling clean off her.

"Inuyasha, do you feel all right?" Sango asked, trying to turn around and check on him without knocking him off.

"I think so," he answered, carefully setting his feet on the ground but keeping one hand on Kirara for balance. Although he wanted to lie down right there, he forced himself to remain upright before the villagers who had come out of their homes to catch a glimpse of their returning resident hanyou.

Sango quickly dismounted, took his arm, and led him towards Kaede's hut, calling for the miko.

"Inuyasha!" Shippo cried, tearing out of the hut and launching himself into his arms – if Sango had not had a good hold of him, the kit would have knocked him over.

"Hey, how are you?" he asked Shippo warmly, patting his head and back, for the kitsune was crying, and he didn't want to see his normally mischievous face looking that way. "So you saved the day by going off to look for big, bad Sesshomaru, huh? I owe you one, Shippo."

The fox's temper flared now, both to fight his own tears and because the last few days had been distressing for him: "You'd better listen to me next time! I told you not to follow that thing! Look what happened! If you get into trouble again I won't lift a paw!"

"Yeah, yeah, I love you too," Inuyasha murmured, silencing Shippo by smothering the little fellow's tear-streaked face against his shoulder.

Kaede came out to take his other arm and lead him indoors, at which point Inuyasha managed to slur: "I don't think I've ever been so happy to see you, old woman."

Rin dashed out briefly before running back in to unroll a mat for him to lie down on.

"_Please_ stop fussing…." he groaned, as he lowered Shippo to the floor while in turn being forced by the two women to sit on the mat, while Rin fetched cool water and hot tea.

"Here, Inuyasha," she said, kneeling beside the mat and handing him a cup of water. "You look thirsty."

"I am. Thanks, kid," he smiled gratefully, downing the water in one go.

"Tea next," the girl told him firmly, so he sipped the hot beverage, which made him feel better.

As Rin took the empty cups from him, Kaede ordered: "Lie down. You can drink more afterwards."

The old miko felt his forehead and jawline, checked the split skin on his scalp, and inspected his hands and claws.

"You have a fever, and you have not eaten or drunk enough in days. We'll set that right while you're still fragile enough to listen to me – which is rare enough," she murmured.

Inuyasha wanted to grumble back at her, but found that he didn't feel up to it. He just needed rest. He looked up at the doorway when Kohaku appeared, and again when Sesshomaru and Miroku reached the hut soon after, but couldn't bring himself to sit up although he wished to. In fact, he could barely keep his eyes open.

"Have you found anything seriously wrong with him yet?" he heard Sesshomaru ask Kaede softly.

"He's running a high fever, which I will do my best to bring down or break, whichever seems more appropriate as it develops. He is dehydrated, and has obviously not been given enough to eat either. He also has wounds on his head, which I am surprised have not healed yet, as they look to be several hours old."

"His hanyou strength was suppressed by magic for more than five days. It may take time for his usual powers to return. The wounds on his head, if what he told me was accurate, were inflicted by the sorcerer's staff and a demon's fist. I have seen no claw marks on him, so I do not think any poison has entered his body."

"He should recover with nourishing food, herbal brews and plenty of rest. As his strength is not at its normal levels, we will keep the wounds very clean so they don't become infected, and watch him carefully to see that he doesn't grow weaker. It is only six days to the new moon – I hope the transformation doesn't make him worse, if he isn't well by then," Kaede answered.

"Is there anything you require that you do not have enough of? Meat? Herbs? I can hunt or search for those."

"At present, we are well-stocked, thank you. If there is anything we should require, I will let you know at once, Sesshomaru-sama."

He heard that much before he felt Sango wrap a thick robe around him for a blanket as Rin placed a cool, damp cloth on his forehead. Miroku was saying something to Sango, but he couldn't make it out, for that was when he fell asleep.

:

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He didn't want to wake up. Every bone in his body ached deep in its marrow, and he wished to sleep on so he wouldn't feel the pain. But Kaede was easing him into a sitting position, and coaxing him to drink something that tasted like chicken broth with a massive dose of herbs. His sense of taste seemed half-gone too, and he couldn't quite tell what he was swallowing. But it went down easily and didn't hurt his throat, so he drank it all, lay down again and sank back into sleep as he felt Kaede's hands tucking the robe around him.

:

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Sesshomaru's face was the first and only thing he saw when he next awoke briefly. His brother placed a hand on his brow and looked at him through eyes filled with concern. Inuyasha tried to speak, but couldn't remember what he wanted to say, and couldn't summon any words – he felt so tired and his head hurt – and all it took was for Sesshomaru to stroke his face to make him drift off again.

:

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The hut was strangely quiet. It was usually so full of the village children's chatter in the evenings, the dull clatter of pots and bowls, and people coming and going with all sorts of requests. He peeled his eyes open to see Kaede stirring something over the fire, and croaked out: "Where's everyone?"

She stopped her stirring, went over to him, felt his head and peered into his face. "Hmm, you're looking a little better. That's good. Miroku, Sango and Kohaku have moved into the hut that the widow Aiko has left – you do remember that young woman who was married to the old joiner? Well, she's gone back to her parents' village to live now that her husband has passed away. Shippo and Rin are at the hut too – I sent them out of here as they couldn't keep quiet, and I didn't want them waking you up. Sesshomaru-sama is in the forest. He won't spend his nights inside human dwellings, but I can sense him right there, watching over this place."

"How long has it been since I came back?"

"This is the second day."

"Ohhhh… I can't keep lying here like this. It's pathetic."

"Don't you dare get up. If I have to knock you out with my ladle to keep you on that mat, I will."

"But I need to pee, old lady."

"Here. Use this jar."

He groaned again.

:

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Something was touching him… through the cage bars… about to sink its claws into him… coming closer… _No!_ Inuyasha whipped around, fangs bared, only to snap out of his nightmare as he found himself staring in shock into Sesshomaru's face. The taiyoukai seemed almost as shocked, his hand hovering over Inuyasha's shoulder.

"I'm sorry," Inuyasha whispered, taking Sesshomaru's hand. "I had a nightmare. I thought I was… I'm sorry." It hurt him to see the pain in his brother's eyes.

"Don't be," Sesshomaru said. "I startled you."

"It wasn't you. It was…."

"Shh. Don't think about it. Everything's all right."

He felt desperate not to leave Sesshomaru with an image of Kinrin making any form of intimate contact with him. "Nothing happened, you know – nothing much – he didn't…."

"I know."

"I keep getting these bloody nightmares."

"It's only been three days. You are still unwell."

"I feel so useless."

"You are not useless. If you _think_ that again, I will feed you to Ah-Un."

"Promise?"

"Promise."

"Liar. I've never seen that beast eat anything besides leaves."

"I can teach him to acquire a taste for hanyou. Now go back to sleep. No more bad dreams for you," Sesshomaru said softly, placing a hand on his brow, as if conferring a blessing on his brother.

:

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"We wanted you to be the first to know," Miroku said, when he and Sango next looked in on him. "Even Kohaku doesn't know yet."

"Know what?" Inuyasha asked.

"Sango's pregnant."

Sango, reddening a little, nodded to confirm her husband's announcement. "I wasn't sure until now."

"Wow… that's…" Inuyasha gasped, sitting up. "I'm so happy for the two of you! Wait – you were already with child when you came looking for me – Sango, you could have been hurt."

"Uh-uh, no sitting up for you yet," Miroku chided, gently pushing him back down.

"Everything turned out fine, didn't it?" Sango smiled. "Don't worry, Inuyasha. I'll be staying well out of rescue missions from now on, until the child is born."

"And something else: we've decided to live in this village," Miroku added.

"That's great. It will be good to have you here."

"Aiko has sent word that she wants to move back to her parents' village," Sango said. "So we'll live in her hut for now, then see if we want to build our own place later, or just stay on there."

"I can't wait to see what your little one will look like when it's born," Inuyasha smiled. "Bet Miroku won't stop at one. He's been asking every woman under the sun to have his children for years, and finally, someone has granted his request."

Sango reddened again, and the grin on Miroku's face told them that he was already thinking about making the next baby.

:

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One morning, the fever was gone, and he felt truly clear-eyed for the first time in what seemed a long while, although in truth, it had only been four days since his return to the village, and nine since he had fallen through the sorcerer's portal. Kaede was satisfied enough with his progress to allow him out of doors with Sesshomaru, after draping a blanket round his shoulders. She forbade him to go beyond the immediate surroundings of her hut, so he seated himself at the foot of a nearby tree, resting his back against the trunk, while Sesshomaru sat beside him.

"Before something else crops up, and I fall down another well or whatever," Inuyasha began. "I have to tell you that what happened at the spring, you know, ten days ago, wasn't what I wanted to happen."

"I know that. It was my mistake."

"No, I don't mean that _that_ wasn't what I wanted to happen. I mean the way I reacted – it wasn't how I wanted to react. I did want more from you. I _do_."

He wanted to touch Sesshomaru, rest his head on his shoulder – but they were in the village, there were people around, and he did not wish to be indiscreet. As they were side by side, he couldn't easily look into his brother's face, and he almost didn't dare to, not knowing how he would respond.

"You're not ready to talk about this yet," came Sesshomaru's reply after a brief silence.

"Of course I'm ready. That's why I'm talking about it."

"You are not ready."

"Why do you say that?"

"Inuyasha, do you feel at all grateful that I went to the caves to save you?"

"What kind of a dumb question is that? Of course I feel grateful."

"My point exactly. You feel you owe me something, although you don't. You feel you would happily do anything for me. You have also been ill, and sickness does things to the heart and mind. So you are not ready to talk about this. Wait till this is all behind you, and you are as strong as you were before. Then we'll talk."

Inuyasha twisted his head to stare at Sesshomaru's profile. "You're saying that you don't want to take advantage of me in my _delicate _condition? Since when have you been such a gentleman?"

"Don't use that human term on me."

"Doesn't matter what term you use for it – it is what it is."

Sesshomaru kept staring straight ahead of him, not looking at Inuyasha, and not answering, so Inuyasha nudged him hard in the ribs with an elbow.

That provoked the taiyoukai into turning to look at the impertinent creature who sat beside him – and to firmly take between his thumb and forefinger the soft-furred flap of one ear.

"Ooowwww…!" Inuyasha protested, angling his head to limit the pain as Sesshomaru pulled his ear just hard enough to make it burn.

When he finally released it, the hanyou rubbed it to soothe the sensitive nerves, muttering: "What is with you? I'm too ill to talk about us, but well enough to have my ears pulled for elbowing you?"

"Precisely."

:

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Two days after his talk under the tree with Sesshomaru, the night of the new moon arrived. Safe in Kaede's hut, alone with the miko, Inuyasha braced himself for his full-human state to set his recovery back. However, when the change came, he felt no worse than he usually did on such nights. In fact, he felt quite energetic.

"The dark magic used against you was designed to suppress demon power, so perhaps it can't touch you in your human state," Kaede mused aloud. "For once, your night of 'vulnerability' may have helped. Now let us hope this drives out all the lingering effects of the sorcery, and pray they don't return with your half-demon strength at dawn!"

"Great!" he declared, jumping to his feet and working a few cricks out of his neck. "I'm going for a walk!"

"Inuyasha, you're supposed to stay indoors on these nights." But her words fell on deaf ears – pink little ones under black hair.

"I'm going to have a talk with Sesshomaru. He's right there in the forest, isn't he? Bet he'll come running to give me a piece of his mind before I'm halfway up the path out of the village."

"Sesshomaru-sama will not be pleased…."

After checking quickly that no villagers were around to see him in this form, Inuyasha left the hut, ignoring Kaede. He was usually wary and tense every time the new moon came around, but tonight, he knew Sesshomaru was keeping a sharp eye on things, so he strode out confidently – even as a human, he could sense his presence, and knew he was watching him.

His brother had not paid him a visit yesterday, although he had not moved from the forest, and he wanted to know why. He made it three-quarters of the way towards the forest and just past the village barrier before Sesshomaru came out of the trees towards him, white as a ghost and almost as translucent.

"What do you think you're doing, coming out alone in this state?" he asked. His voice sounded tense.

"I came because I knew you were here," he replied logically.

Sesshomaru did not argue with this, although he did not seem happy about it. Inuyasha continued walking into the forest, and he followed quietly. In the near-total darkness under the trees, he became a pale figure at his back, with features Inuyasha couldn't make out.

"Did you wish to see me for a particular reason?" the taiyoukai's voice bridged the darkness between them.

"Yes. I feel perfectly fine, not sick at all, and we didn't finish our talk from two days ago."

"I told you that I want to wait until you are ready. It's too soon to discuss this."

"Hey, you're the one who asked me to wait too the last time, and I was doing exactly that when, whoosh, two days later, you were grabbing me. So much for waiting."

"I won't do that again this time," Sesshomaru promised.

"Won't do what? Won't be impatient, or won't grab me again?" Inuyasha asked, carefully feeling his way along the cold forest floor with his bare feet, for he could not see a thing.

"Stop walking, or you'll fall flat on your face. This is a safe place to stand. There are no snakes or scorpions near you."

"Good to know that," Inuyasha remarked, stopping and tucking his hands into his sleeves. "But don't avoid my question. What won't you do again?"

"I won't do anything I shouldn't until we are both ready. I wasn't avoiding your question. I was trying to keep you from tripping and falling."

"All you have to do to stop me tripping in the dark is to take my arm, you know."

But Sesshomaru did not take him up on that offer, and he could not see his face to read the look on it. So he stepped over to him across the width of the forest trail and put his arms around him. Sesshomaru stiffened, but Inuyasha ignored that and pressed his face into his neck, then nipped gently at his jawline, and said: "You didn't come to see me yesterday."

"You were well enough not to require my attendance," Sesshomaru replied, curling one hand around his brother's arm.

"I could have done with your _company_."

"Inuyasha," he murmured as the now-human hanyou continued placing little nibbling kisses on his cheek. "This is _not_ going to help us arrive at an objective decision." He gently, yet urgently, eased his companion off him and held him away from his body.

Inuyasha felt a bit hurt, but conceded that nibbling at Sesshomaru's face was probably not the best thing to do if they were supposed to be waiting for the right time to discuss what they would do. So he stepped back, saying: "I know, I know. We have to wait. But you've been here every night since you brought me back, haven't you?"

"Yes."

"So how long can this go on? Don't you have anything better to do besides keep an eye on me?"

"I will once you have fully recovered."

"I'm about there. What will you do then? Are you going to let us sit down for a proper talk, or will you fly off at once?"

"We shall see when the time comes."

"_When_ exactly do you think I'm going to be ready to decide what I want?" Inuyasha asked. "I feel perfectly ready now."

"You'll be ready to decide when you no longer need me, when you stop having nightmares about what happened, and when you regain your full strength."

"Anything more?"

"Yes. Wait till you are next angry with me and see if you still want to talk about it. That will be the time for you to decide."

"Will _you_ be ready then?" Inuyasha questioned, voicing the misgivings he had felt from the moment Sesshomaru had looked less than pleased to see him on the path out of the village.

"I don't know. But we will have that discussion when we are _both_ ready for it."

"What do you mean you don't know? You were the one raring to go for it before."

"I made a mistake."

That statement was so ambiguous, and Sesshomaru had tried to keep such a clear distance between them from the moment he met him on the forest path, that Inuyasha did not know what to make of it. But it sounded very much like Sesshomaru thinking better of regarding him as more than a brother.

"You made a _mistake_?" he echoed, taking a step towards the ethereal figure three feet away from him.

To his disbelief, Sesshomaru stepped back when he moved forward, away from him.

"What? You don't even want to be near me now?" he asked, feelings wounded and temper starting to rise.

"That is not true," Sesshomaru spoke. "I only want to give us both time – and space – so that we do not act in haste."

"You literally want _space_ – as in – you want me to keep my distance?"

"Yes." Sesshomaru's voice was as even as before, but his youki was disturbed. It was something Inuyasha could feel despite his humanity. Some humans, like Kaede, Miroku and Sango, through rigorous training or natural ability, could sense demon youki, and he was the same on new-moon nights.

That really hurt. It hurt to hear Sesshomaru say that he wanted him to keep his distance, and it hurt to feel that troubled aura of his, as if he was somehow… afraid? No, he was _never_ afraid, was he? Yet, it seemed very much as if he feared to make contact with him.

Inuyasha's instinct was to demand answers. _Why?_ Had he changed his mind? Did he think he was no longer good enough for him because he had been contaminated by Kinrin? But Sesshomaru knew that Kinrin hadn't raped him. Maybe it was bad enough that he'd been touched by him? Then again, that couldn't be, not when he had been so relieved to find him alive, and so caring as he lay ill. Did he think he had jumped into the well instead of being pushed? Was that it? Was he angry because he thought he had chosen Kagome? But no, he had said before that he knew she would be Inuyasha's mate. Why should he get mad over her now? Maybe he was disgusted to have seen him so weak at the caves, at Kinrin's mercy, when what he wanted was a strong companion, not someone who could be chained up like a pet and pawed by a demon well on his way to getting inside his trousers.

No, that didn't make sense. The day before yesterday, he was still pulling his ear and sitting close to him. Perhaps he shouldn't have come out to talk to him as a human. Maybe this form of his was repulsive to him.

_That's it? I'm not good enough any more?_ he wondered. But aloud, he said: "Okay. Fine. I'll keep my distance. Sorry to have bothered you tonight."

He sensed Sesshomaru starting to move towards him, sensed that he wanted to say something; but the move ultimately wasn't made, and the words didn't come.

So he couldn't even bring himself to continue the conversation?

Very well.

"I'm going back now."

"Inuyasha," Sesshomaru said at last. "We'll talk when we're _both_ ready."

"Sure." He turned around and strode back along the path, certain of his footing as he had not stumbled over any tree roots on the way into the forest. He could still feel Sesshomaru's concern for him, but also that compulsion to keep away from him – as if he was now good enough to be his little brother, but no longer suitable as a partner, a lover. What had been born on the night of the last new moon, sending their emotions into such turmoil, was settling now on another dark night into the shape it looked like it would remain in for many moons to come, if not forever.

_So be it,_ Inuyasha thought, pride smarting, but his head telling him it was for the best. _Wasn't this what I wanted in the first place?_

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Sesshomaru walked three feet behind Inuyasha until the hanyou crossed the village barrier, watched him till he reached Kaede's hut, then continued trying to read his emotions, and checking for danger to him in the vicinity, as he had faithfully for the past six nights.

He knew he had hurt his feelings, but he couldn't touch him now, not like that, not the way he was, so utterly vulnerable, those wide eyes flashing violet, then gray. He wasn't ready. What was the lad thinking, presenting himself in that state, all alone? Maybe he should have been more communicative, but it had been hard for him as it was to have continued the conversation as long as he had. And he had learnt the lesson that it was less important to preserve his good image in Inuyasha's eyes than to make sure that Inuyasha was kept safe.

Even from himself.

He returned to the spot he had been at before he had sensed Inuyasha leaving the hut, the place where he had left Jaken and Ah-Un, who had returned from the west four days ago.

"Sesshomaru-sama!" Jaken's grating voice greeted him once he was within sight of the kappa. "Is everything well with the ha… I mean… with master Inuyasha?"

"Yes."

Jaken had been cleaning Ah-Un's muzzles, saddle and saddlecloth. He now moved on to tidying the contents of the saddlebags, and at some point pulled out a piece of cloth he hadn't seen in there before.

"Sesshomaru-sama," the kappa asked, approaching him. "Do you wish me to discard this? It seems to be a torn old rag, although it has master Inuyasha's scent on it."

Sesshomaru lifted out of Jaken's hands the undershirt with one missing sleeve, which he had taken away from Inuyasha back at the spring as if to discard it for him, only to secretly keep it. He looked at it now, then back at the kappa, and said sternly: "Jaken, don't ever touch this again without my permission."

"Y-yes, Sesshomaru-sama," the kappa stammered, and scurried back to the saddlebags. He had just resumed his work when they detected the arrival of another visitor. Jaken grabbed his staff of heads as a precaution while Sesshomaru quickly slipped Inuyasha's undershirt into his own clothing and got to his feet.

It was the younger dragon demon who had accompanied his fellow-disciple, Amaya, to the caves. He landed several feet away from them in the forest, bowing and waiting until Sesshomaru permitted him to approach.

"Sesshomaru-sama," he said. "My sensei Ryuhi sends you his greetings and, once again, his thanks for warning our tribe about Kinrin's plot. He also wishes me to deliver the message that our tribe has not used, and will not use, the sorcerer's knowledge against anyone."

The demon laid a cloth-wrapped item on the grass, and began unfolding it, although Sesshomaru's nose had already told him what it was.

"This is my sensei's proof to you of our good intentions."

He opened the last fold of the cloth, and there on the grass lay Tatsuya's freshly severed head.

The demon added: "My sensei wished me to tell you that he wanted to return the sorcerer to you alive after he had finally neutralised all the potions, so that you could deal with him as you pleased. However, when the sorcerer learnt that he was to be sent back to you, he tried to kill himself. My sensei chose to execute him as a mark of respect to you, rather than permit the man to end his own life."

Sesshomaru inclined his head to acknowledge the message. "Give my greetings and thanks to Ryuhi."

When the demon left, Sesshomaru gave Jaken his orders: "Jaken, take this head to the bear oni in the south. Go into the heart of their territory – Ah-Un will know the way. Tell them that the dragons have executed this sorcerer, and I have killed the demon, who held their brother captive and experimented on him. They may do as they wish with the head. It will be a long flight, so let Ah-Un rest in a safe place before returning."

"Yes, Sesshomaru-sama," Jaken said, and got Ah-Un ready. The dragon, well rested after four days of sleeping and eating in the forest, was eager to stretch his figurative wings for another long trip, and tossed the kappa around in his excitement.

Sesshomaru watched them leave before sitting back down on the rock he had been resting on before the young demon's arrival.

Alone now, he drew out Inuyasha's undershirt from inside his own clothes and breathed in his brother's scent deeply from it. He held the garment a moment longer, contemplating it, then slipped it back beneath his haori and its underlayers, where his armour kept it pressed next to his heart.


	21. Why should he stay?

Chapter XXI: _Why should he stay, whom love doth press to go?_

"Jump in," Miroku said.

"What?" Inuyasha asked, although he had heard him perfectly clearly.

"Go on, jump in."

"Why should I?"

The monk, the hanyou and Shippo were at the well, standing around the casing, staring into its depths.

"Are you afraid to?" Miroku asked.

"Afraid?" Inuyasha scoffed. "What are you talking about? Of course I'm not afraid. I just don't see why I should jump in right now."

"You haven't come near the well since we returned to the village fifteen days ago. You were sick for the first six days, but you haven't so much as approached the village boundaries since recovering completely, and that is very unlike you, my friend."

Shippo chirped: "Miroku checked the well thoroughly yesterday, and he's sure there's no more magic spell in it. We both climbed in, and everything was fine, so there's no need to stay away from it any more, Inuyasha!"

"Who said I was staying away from it? I've been resting in the village, that's all. But you had to drag me out here for heaven knows what."

"Then get in."

"I don't see why I should!" the hanyou snapped.

"Inuyasha," Miroku said patiently. "There's no more sorcery in there. Granted, there's still no time portal back to Kagome's home either, as I don't sense that at all, but there's definitely no dark magic. It's in your past now."

Inuyasha glared at him. "What are you getting at?"

"I'm saying that it's time to stop being afraid."

"Who said I was _afraid?!?_" he yelled indignantly. "Weren't you the ones who tried so hard to keep me from sitting in the well months ago? Now you want me to _get back in!?_"

Miroku sighed. "You are behaving so unlike your usual self that we're worried about you. I think the best first step towards regaining your normal boldness is to get back into the structure that the sorcerer used to take you away from us. It's safe now, and no harm will come to you in there. I'll even climb in with you. If some bad sorcery's afoot, then we'll both get whisked away, but never fear, for I'll be there to fight the magic while you fight our way out – and of course you'll have to carry me back; and if the old time portal is working again, then you'll be at Kagome's while we'll wait here for you to bring her over. But as I said, I'm very certain that's not in operation either."

"Fine, fine! I'll jump in just to shut you up!" Inuyasha growled, leaning over the casing and peering in.

"Want me to hold your hand?" Miroku offered cheekily.

"Piss off, Miroku."

As he prepared to take the leap, he felt Sesshomaru's youki tensing in the forest, the demon himself unseen but very much there. He didn't seem to be moving to stop him, however, so he took a deep breath and jumped.

He landed on the solid floor of the well, much to his relief, and looked up to see Miroku and Shippo smiling down at him. "See? All safe," the monk said smugly.

"Great. How lovely. I kind of miss this spot, you know," Inuyasha said caustically, sitting down in the dirt and crossing his legs. "I think I'll rest in here for another three weeks."

More interesting vibes from the invisible Sesshomaru in the forest, but still no further movement. The real tension was starting to emanate from his friends above as the minutes passed, and they began exchanging looks with each other, wondering how they were going to haul the difficult hanyou back out. While they were looking away from him, he took the opportunity to caress the floor of the well beside him, picturing Kagome's hand in that very spot, in her world, and whispered a silent hello to her across the centuries.

"Inuyasha, you've been down there long enough. I'll count to a hundred," Miroku cautioned him. "If you're not back out by then, Shippo and I will both jump in and join you, and you know it can get uncomfortable with more than two inside."

"Make up your minds!" Inuyasha shouted up at them. "Do you want me in or out?"

"We want you to not be afraid of being in there, but we don't want you actually _staying_ in there!" Shippo snapped.

With a stream of cursing and muttering, Inuyasha leaped back out. "All right, so I jumped in. Is that all for now? Anything else I can do for your _lordships_ this morning?"

"Well, what are your plans from this point on?" Miroku inquired. "Are you going to nap in the sugi tree for the rest of today, and the rest of the next day, and the next week? Do more reroofing jobs? Haul some more barrels of food around for the villagers?"

Inuyasha glared at him, but he knew what the monk was driving at. Since returning to the village, he had not left it at all, save for the little night excursion into the forest seven days ago for that talk with Sesshomaru, which hadn't gone so well.

He didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything.

It was true that when they had still been searching for the shards of the Shikon Jewel, he had slumped into days of being virtually catatonic while waiting for Kagome to reappear – but he had always been irritably morose and depressed in the most antsy way possible during those waits, and had occasionally stomped off into the wilds by himself, or charged through time to drag her back over here. This new lethargy, however, was not accompanied by the urge to expend energy. He was simply demoralised. If he had to give a truthful answer, he would have to say that he knew exactly why.

Of course, there was the trauma of having been caged for five days and almost raped by some scaly bastard the very sight of whom made him want to puke. And there was the illness which had felled him for longer than he had ever lain sick for. But it was more than that.

It was the matter of Sesshomaru.

Everyone had noticed that the taiyoukai had stopped visiting, while continuing to feel his presence close by in the forest, but no one dared to ask Inuyasha why. Kaede and Shippo knew nothing – or seemed to know nothing – about their relationship being anything more than brotherly, so they refrained from asking out of politeness, and wariness of Inuyasha's temper; Miroku and Sango didn't want to be tactless, so they didn't mention it; as for Rin, she had grown so used to her guardian's long absences that she had regarded his daily visits to the village over the first five days of Inuyasha's illness as a bonanza, and was not about to complain that he had not shown up for the last ten.

All this while, Sesshomaru had barely moved from where he was in the forest, and was still watching over him, but he wasn't coming any closer.

_You are determined to play perfectly the model role of protective big brother, but you're never going to touch me that way again, are you?_ Inuyasha asked inside his head. _Did I fall that far in your estimation by being caged and chained? _

As he walked back to Kaede's hut with Miroku and Shippo, Inuyasha decided that this couldn't go on. He still didn't feel like going anywhere or doing anything, but what the hell, he would _make_ himself get off his butt and fight his way back to what he used to be. That other stalemate – with his brother – couldn't go on either. Hell and damnation, if Sesshomaru wouldn't come to the village, he would go to him, and tell him to get on with his life and do whatever the devil he pleased. He could play big brother all he liked – his little sibling wasn't going to sit around waiting for him to feel like getting in another grope some time in the next century.

"All right!" he announced to Kaede, Sango, Rin, Miroku and Shippo, but most of all to himself, once he stepped into the hut. "I'm off demon-hunting. Didn't someone say something two days ago about a troublesome beast eating villagers to the west of here? Since Kohaku's occupied in the south, I'll take that one on. I'd like some time alone too, so I'll only check in with you lot every ten days or so, okay? And naturally, I'll be back here during the new moon."

His friends caught their breaths. For his sake, they wanted to see him return to being his usual self now that he had recovered his full health and strength, but suddenly running off like that immediately after his first visit to the well since they had rescued him from the caves seemed too abrupt.

"Are you really ready to be on your own?" Sango asked. "Would you like Miroku and Shippo with you?"

"Absolutely not," he said, glaring at her. "Your husband had better stay put to look after you very well for the next – what is it now, eight months? And Shippo would only end up coming close to getting eaten by something or other and needing me to rescue him!"

"Hey!" the kitsune protested, balling his hands into fists but not flying at him to pummel him, because the sight of an Inuyasha getting his feistiness back was exactly what he and Miroku had been trying to achieve.

"Inuyasha, I meant to have you jump into the well as a first step towards a gradual return to your old self," Miroku said cautiously. "I didn't mean for you to run off demon-hunting on the same day."

"Why sit around and wait when I can just _leap right back in_?" Inuyasha asked ironically, showing him the tips of his fangs.

Without waiting for an answer, the hanyou strode out of the hut and jumped into the trees bordering the forest, soaring beyond their reach and sight.

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The first thing Inuyasha did before heading westwards to the area that he had heard was troubled by demon attacks was to try and drop in on Sesshomaru. He wanted to tell him that where they had left their last conversation was perfectly okay with him, and they could carry on with their lives as siblings. He still didn't understand what seemed to be a sudden change of heart on his brother's part, but perhaps after his rejection of him at the spring pool, and while he was held captive by Kinrin and the sorcerer, Sesshomaru had had plenty of time to arrive at a decision that maybe was for the best after all.

The way he had hesitated to jump into the well had proven him right about one thing: he wasn't ready. He wasn't himself yet, and his brother was being technically correct by refusing to discuss that sensitive subject with him until he was completely back to normal. Yet, the taiyoukai had admitted that he himself might not be ready when that happened, and damn it, but that had stung. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he had grown quite comfortable with the idea of a Sesshomaru who would wait patiently for him until he, Inuyasha, came around to the idea of smooching his brother.

To find himself keen now, only to be rebuffed by the one who had had the hots for him but who didn't seem to be encouraging him to think that he would wait any more, was a blow to his assumptions and pride, but hell, he would get over it.

As he arrived at that conclusion, he sailed through the air under the canopy of the trees towards where he knew Sesshomaru had stationed himself for the last fifteen days, save for short periods when he moved deeper into the woods, presumably to hunt. When he landed at the spot, however, the taiyoukai wasn't there.

Inuyasha could still detect him nearby, so he moved in the direction he sensed he had gone along, only to realise that he still couldn't see him. Another move, and the same distance remained between them.

_Bloody hell,_ Inuyasha thought. _He's avoiding me!_

He experimented with one more great leap towards where he knew his brother was, and again saw no sign of him despite knowing through the evidence of his scent and youki that he was very close.

_You prick! You're just going to keep dancing away from me, aren't you? Fine! Dance on. I'm going off to do what I want, and you can play your game of avoidance till it's oozing from those pointy ears of yours._

Feeling mightily offended, somewhat hurt deep in his puppyish heart, yet a little bit amused that this great and powerful demon was practically hiding from him, Inuyasha pronounced his verdict on the whole situation with a huffy "Feh!" and headed west.

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"You are certainly not easy to find, my old friend," came the voice from among the trees, catching Sesshomaru in the absurd act of playing hide-and-seek with his brother.

"Ryuhi," Sesshomaru said, turning to greet the old dragon demon, silver-skinned but bronze-haired, who emerged near the forest trail behind him. If he was flustered to have been seen retreating from the hanyou's presence, he didn't show it.

"I'm amazed that my young disciple Aki didn't take a month to locate you. He clearly has a much better nose than I do," Ryuhi remarked. "I found you only because I chanced upon your water sprite exercising Ah-Un fifty miles away, and they told me where you were!"

"It's been a long time," Sesshomaru said, noting the discreetly coloured yet elaborate, multi-layered robes of the elder youkai, which indicated his high rank – unusual for a swordsmith, but then Sesshomaru knew that Ryuhi had never been one to conform to demon or any other stereotype.

"There was good reason for not meeting before, wasn't there?" his visitor commented. "After your father fought Ryukotsusei and died as a result, it would not have done for you and I to be seen in each other's presence."

"I take it your visit indicates that things may be changing?"

"There's hope of that. Our tribe's present leaders have always been more interested in battling each other for power than looking outward like our old one. And Ryukotsusei's daughter is young yet – she has not been ready these two hundred and seventy years to rule our domains herself, but she seems much more reasonable than her sire, and has just taken a mate who could help her do a decent job – that is, if she can wrest more authority from the regents."

"But you didn't come to keep me updated about your tribe."

"No, Sesshomaru. I came because I considered your father my friend, and I think of you as one too. I wanted to assure you with whatever authority I have – which I may flatter myself is sufficient, considering my years and my standing with the regents – that our tribe has no interest in making trouble beyond our own borders at present. Mind you, I can't speak for the next few millennia, but at least for now, you needn't concern yourself with our leaders. They have accepted that they owe you thanks for the warning about Kinrin's plan, and won't be pushing into your territories any time soon."

"I watch those territories purely to continue my father's protection of the clans living within them, but I do not rule them as he did, and I don't keep a home there. I have no fixed abode, as I'm sure you know."

"Not setting up your own household yet?" Ryuhi asked in a curiously playful way. "I'm sure I heard some talk about a certain _someone_ for whom you fought Kinrin."

"You are referring to my _brother,_" Sesshomaru emphasised the last word pointedly.

"Your brother – yes, the hanyou who slew Ryukotsusei. That he is a half-demon perhaps surprises me, but that he is your half-brother does not. Come now, youkai have never been prevented as humans have from choosing siblings as their mates and companions. So don't give me that stuck-up rubbish about him being your _brother_."

"Did you come all this way to lecture me about my personal life?"

"Maybe I did!" the old demon said brightly.

"Ryuhi," Sesshomaru said in a tone of voice that came close to being a warning.

"Yes, yes, I know, I'm such a tease."

Sesshomaru arched a brow; "tease" was not the word he would have used to describe the elderly dragon demon.

"You've changed, by the way – time was when you were such a brat, you would have tried to slice off my head for saying half so much. I think I like you better now," Ryuhi remarked. "But as to why I came: of course it was to see you after not having had the opportunity to do so for such a long time. However, I also wished to visit because it occurred to me that all this sending of disciples and messengers back and forth was not of much assurance to you about our intentions. I didn't want you to think that any members of our tribe were plotting anything further behind your back with potions or sorcerers or whatnot. I came in person to tell you that I didn't kill that sorcerer to silence him over anything. He was damned close to ending his own life when the guards caught him at it, and I would not give him the honour of dying by his own hand, not after he and Kinrin dared to seize your hanyou. So I cut off his head myself."

"I trust you, Ryuhi. You did not have to come so far to tell me this."

"I wanted to. It is only correct. As for Kinrin, rest assured that we are not trying to bring him back to life or anything of the sort – we wouldn't want to after what he tried to do to us, unless it's just to kill him all over again, more painfully. We turned against him in the first place because he tried to murder all the regents to gain full control over Ryukotsusei's daughter. Then this crazy potion plot – no, believe me, we don't want him back," Ryuhi murmured.

"I believe you."

"Hmm, you're only being polite. Don't pretend that you didn't have misgivings about what we were going to do with his body."

Sesshomaru did not give a verbal reply.

"We owed his mother a last look at her son, although she had disowned him. Then with her permission, we cast his body into the ravine beneath the red cliffs on our eastern coast. It was all he deserved. You may view the remains there whenever you wish – or take your brother there to show him that the bastard has stayed dead."

"I would not want to subject his eyes to the sight of that thing again," Sesshomaru answered.

"As you wish. In any case, you must visit me at my forge soon. I'll never have Totosai's talent, and I can see that you have no need of a blade, but I make fine enough swords, so if you want a look around the forge, come by. That's all I came to say. I've been away long enough, losing my way and all – I should return before my disciples set the whole damned place ablaze. And of course _you_ do not want to be delayed much further from keeping an eye on the young one, whom you were watching so intently yet avoiding so assiduously when I arrived?"

Sesshomaru glared at his old friend. "You _are_ here to interfere in my private life."

"What else have I to do outside of my forge?" the ancient demon sighed. "Go on, before he strays too far. Remember – come and visit me. Bring him along if you think he hasn't already had too much of scaly youkai."

"I doubt he'll be going anywhere with me anytime soon."

"Oh? Have you had a fight? Well, hurry up and make up!"

"It's not that simple, Ryuhi."

"No?"

"No."

"Then do something about it! You're not going to just follow him around for the next three hundred years?"

"I will if I have to."

Ryuhi shook his head. "I'll not tell you what to do, but I will tell you that you're behaving like an idiot by avoiding him. That won't solve anything."

"Perhaps not. But it could prevent things from becoming worse."

"Really?"

"You don't know the story."

"Ah, but I _do_ know that even when we are wiser and older, we may not always know what's best for someone else, and even when know _that_, we may not realise how doing what is 'best' for them could only break their hearts," Ryuhi said. "Just something for you to think about."

"For someone I haven't seen in about two hundred and fifty years, you presume to know a lot about me."

"Oh, I might be better informed than you think. Ah-Un may not be able to talk to you or anyone else, but he has ways of telling _me_ things, you know. And we had quite a bit of time to catch up while he was resting at my forge."

Sesshomaru's eyes narrowed at that piece of information, but Inuyasha's scent was almost fading from the area, and he had to go.

Ryuhi said breezily: "I'll continue this discussion with you on another occasion, although I sincerely hope that you'll have worked everything out by the time we next meet. Off with you now, don't let him get away from you."

Sesshomaru wanted to question him about what Ah-Un had told him, but Inuyasha was on the move, and fast, so they took their leave of each other. The taiyoukai moved swiftly through the forest in the direction his brother had gone in, thinking to himself: _That sly two-headed gossip is in for a whipping when I next collect him and Jaken!_


	22. My heart was to thy rudder tied

Chapter XXII: _My heart was to thy rudder tied_

Slicing the air in a great arc with the Tetsusaiga, Inuyasha cut through the trees towards the human-eating demon he had come to slay. The beast looked ridiculously like a drawing in a storybook about "monsters from outer space" that Kagome's little brother, Sota, had long outgrown, but which their mother could not bear to discard because it had been his favourite book not that many years ago. It was the greenish creature on page five, the one depicted as attempting to eat a downtown Tokyo office block, that came to mind when he faced the present beast.

The resemblance almost made him grin, but this was no storybook, and the hanyou stopped himself from daydreaming before continuing in his attempt to lure it away from the village. Fortunately, it wasn't too hard to distract the thing, as Inuyasha's bright-red garb and attention-grabbing yells made him appear a tastier morsel than the skinny farming folk fleeing in terror. Objective achieved, Inuyasha grunted with all the satisfaction of a predator to see that he had succeeded in separating _this_ monster from the villagers it had been trying to trample and eat. "Got you at last!" he growled.

The way now clear for him to strike, he cleft the ogre-like beast asunder in one clean diagonal move from its left shoulder to its right hip.

As the villagers screamed and their few cows lowed nervously, the demon's newly-created two halves slid apart, its top half crashing into the field and the lower half tottering a couple of steps before toppling over. Inuyasha watched the remains bubble and seethe with poison escaping from its innards, along with a few human remains from its last meal. When he was sure it would stay dead, he sheathed his sword, dusted his hands, and walked away.

He heard the cries of the people behind him, but refused to heed them. Most of the time, these simple folk were as afraid of him as of the beasts that had been terrorising them, and sometimes threw stuff at him to drive him away.

"Y-you're a demon too, aren't you?" one particularly loud and persistent voice cut through the general noise. "What do you want from us?"

That made him stop and turn to glare over his shoulder at the crowd behind him, a look which made them all take a few steps back.

"I don't want anything – can't you get that through your thick skulls?" he snapped. "You didn't ask me to come, so I'm not asking anything of you!"

He walked on, but heard the group following him. He whipped around to glare at them and yell: "What now?"

"Er… we just want to say thank you," said the farmer who owned the persistent voice. "May we offer you a meal, or at least something to drink? We don't have much, but we do have some food and a bit of rice wine."

Now _that_, Inuyasha thought, was a first. The only times human communities – apart from Kaede's village – had ever been nice to him were when Miroku was around to sweet-talk people into providing their pack with a hot meal, a roof over their heads for the night (and ideally some young women to amuse the monk through that same night). It didn't hurt either that Kagome and Sango were human, pretty and good-natured enough to provide further encouragement to their hosts to put them up.

On his own, Inuyasha had never faced anything but abuse or avoidance from the villages he had helped, whose folk feared he would only be the next tyrant to bring more misery into their lives.

"Thanks," he told the man, whose community was visibly poorer than Kaede's. "But I think you need all the food for yourselves, from the looks of it!"

He jumped away so they could not follow, and disappeared into the surrounding forest. It felt nice to be thanked for helping someone, although expressions of appreciation invariably left him outwardly irritated and embarrassed. "Don't expect that to last!" he said aloud to himself. "Next lot you help will probably try to cudgel you with their farm tools!"

Still, that pleasant feeling remained in him, and gave him a warm glow somewhere in the region of his chest and tummy, where it did some good by relieving that other sensation – the unsettled one of not knowing what the devil that singular brother of his was up to.

When he had failed to see Sesshomaru face-to-face in the forest behind Kaede's village, he had stalked off in annoyance, but his heart had sunk as he realised that he wasn't following him. _That's it, then,_ he had thought at the time. _He's been staying in this forest all these days for some weird reason of his own – maybe he's fallen in love with Sango, hahaha. If he had been staying for me, he'd come after me now that I'm leaving, wouldn't he?_

But by the time he reached the next forest on his way to slay the troublesome beast, Sesshomaru's youki was in evidence again, although the taiyoukai himself was still hidden from sight. It seemed as if he had been held up by something which had prevented him from immediately going after Inuyasha.

The initial thrill he felt upon realising that he was being tailed quickly turned to confusion as Sesshomaru steadfastly refused to show himself, speak or leave. He was keeping away from him all right, but he was also keeping Inuyasha very much at the centre of an imaginary moving circle whose circumference he was patrolling.

Being shadowed like that began to grate on Inuyasha's nerves, as it dawned on him that he was truly being treated like a little brother – a _very_ _little_ brother who obviously couldn't be trusted beyond his guardian's immediate range of influence.

_What the hell is he up to?_ Inuyasha wondered again, as he moved away from the village he had just saved from the demon, and continued to feel his brother's presence. _Is he just going to stalk me from a safe distance? For how bloody long?_

"Hey! You do realise that I _know_ you're there?" he turned to yell out into the miles of trees behind him, causing a flock of birds to take to the air with frightened squawks.

No answer.

"_This_ is what you consider 'something better to do' once I'm well? Stalking me?"

Still nothing.

Inuyasha issued an exasperated vocalisation, glared at the lines and clumps of trees he had just passed, then kept moving.

By evening, he was annoyed enough to roar: "Are you EVER going to show yourself? What do you think is going to happen, for crying out loud? Do you REALLY think I'm going to jump on you, overpower you and outrage your modesty?!?"

He naturally received no reply, although he did detect something like mild amusement in the vibes emanating from his invisible brother. _Sheesh – was that so funny?_

At nightfall, after roasting and consuming some wild poultry he had caught for supper, he was reduced to muttering loudly in a vague direction over his shoulder, and among his murmurings was the irritated protest of: "For pity's sake, either come out or GO AWAY. Can't I at least have a moment's privacy to take a leak without wondering which damned direction I shouldn't be facing in?"

More amusement, and that powerful youki even flared so that it felt like he could be anywhere, watching him from any direction. Terrific. His brother was apparently choosing to develop a perverse sense of humour at this most inconvenient time, and Inuyasha ended up hiding in the underbrush to empty his bladder, which wasn't pleasant as those twigs were horribly scratchy, with caterpillars and such, and he was, after all, exposing a rather delicate part of his anatomy.

As the night deepened, he scoured the area to make sure that no other demons or dangerous beasts were around (other than Sesshomaru the Super Stalker), and took to a tall tree so he could get some rest.

He sensed his brother winding down too, obviously having completed his own scanning of their surroundings. For a while, it comforted him to know that someone not very far away was looking out for him. But it quickly occurred to him how ridiculous it was to be shadowed by an individual who had implied not eight nights back that he might not want him as a lover after all. If that was so, shouldn't he be the one stalking Sesshomaru instead?

The absurdity of being trailed by the one he wished to pursue irked him, and he grumbled aloud: "You can be such a _jerk_, you know that?"

He had more than a strong suspicion that the small pebble which whizzed over to his tree and hit him smack on the back of his head right after he spoke those words had been launched from a certain claw-tipped, long-fingered, stripy hand.

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The following days revolved largely around the same pattern of Inuyasha minding his own business of slaughtering demons that were up to no good near human settlements and the dens of peaceable youkai, catching himself fish and animals for food, nibbling on wild fruit and edible leaves, and trying not to feel too self-conscious about answering the call of nature in the presence of what he knew was a very observant audience of one.

It also followed a pattern of his alternately ignoring the taiyoukai, and feeling frustrated at being watched the whole time while never being able to provoke him into showing his face.

He flew between moods of temptation to flush him out by Wind Scarring a hundred-mile radius of surrounding countryside, and softer moments when he wished he would stop staying out of sight and just come out so that he could throw himself into his arms and refuse to let himself be pushed away. At intervals, he amused himself with the private joke that maybe all this was part of some obscure taiyoukai courtship ritual.

Ha. If only.

On the tenth day, he checked back in with his friends at the village as he had promised he would, then ventured off again in a different direction this time, with his now-familiar albeit unseen shadow following at a discreet distance.

The lowest point came on the afternoon of the sixteenth day, when he found himself standing in a clearing and screaming his head off at Sesshomaru: "HEY! You said I would be ready to talk when I was next angry with you! Well, I'm angry now! I'm FUCKING ANGRY! And I still want to talk! Dammit, I'M FURIOUS WITH YOU, AND I STILL WANT YOU! What does that say, huh? HUH?!? So can we bloody talk NOW?"

He received no answer, but as he quietened down, he noticed a family of river otter youkai staring at him in wide-eyed amazement from the edge of the clearing, on the banks of their stream. As he gaped at them, the parents, who were large but obviously harmless, pushed their two little offspring behind them to shield them from the clearly insane, very potty-mouthed and patently randy dog hanyou shrieking on their doorstep.

Flushing almost as red as his robe with humiliation, he gave the invisible Sesshomaru another growl of exasperation and jumped into the trees, away from the family he had startled, sensing as he fled the clearing that his brother was laughing quietly to himself.

_Oh, go right on ahead – laugh at me right after I've declared that I want you, why don't you? _he muttered to himself, his cheeks burning. But as he flew through the trees, he had to admit that the looks on the faces of those demons had been pretty funny.

He allowed himself a snort of laughter at his own expense, and felt a weight that he hadn't realised was there lift from him. He hadn't found much that was genuinely hilarious for quite some time – very little in general since Kikyo's death, and less to smile about with heartfelt warmth since he had been separated from Kagome – but he supposed that screaming about wanting to get it on with his brother in front of a bewildered pair of otter youkai and their two young ones, all with identically incredulous looks on their faces, was a fair enough candidate for something worth laughing at.

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On the nineteenth day of his nominally solo excursion, he turned and headed back towards Kaede's again, for the next night would be another night of the new moon, and he had promised his friends that he would be safely ensconced in the village for that.

It crossed his mind that he could get Sesshomaru to emerge by spending his human night out in the open like bait, and waiting for someone or something to come by and attempt to eat him. Now _that_ would have his brother flying out towards him, or more accurately, towards whatever might try to devour him, like a bat to a bug – a tall, strong, dangerous, beautiful, silky and very fluffy bat.

But no, that wouldn't be fair. It seemed like playing dirty somehow, and he wanted Sesshomaru to come out when he was good and ready. He needed to know that he really wanted him (or conversely, that he had decided he didn't) and not that he was present only because his hand had been forced.

So he dutifully turned up on Kaede's doorstep by the eve of the new moon, stayed the night, and spent the whole of the next day helping her, Rin and Shippo with their chores. As the sun began to set, he kept indoors and underwent his transformation uneventfully, reminding Rin once again that she was not to tell anyone about his human nights, and cuffing Shippo because the young bigmouth had told so many people before. Shippo had to run to Sango for protection, as she and Miroku were joining them for the evening meal, and he knew Inuyasha wouldn't hit Sango even if she was kicking his butt to bits in an all-out fight, now that she was pregnant.

"You're setting off again tomorrow, aren't you?" Miroku asked Inuyasha as they drank their soup.

"Yes," Inuyasha affirmed. "I guess I'll be gone for another ten days before checking in with you lot again. If I've had enough space and solitude by the time that's over, I should be back here on a more regular basis after that."

"Don't you get lonely out there all by yourself?" Rin asked. "I would if I were all alone."

"In between butchering bad demons, it does get very quiet," he told her. "But I'm used to it."

He didn't mention the matter of how _her_ guardian seemed to have become _his_ self-appointed guardian too.

"Maybe Inuyasha has friends out there we don't know about, who keep him company all through the long, lonely nights," Miroku told the little girl, smirking at the hanyou, for he could tell that Sesshomaru was close by again, back in the forest behind them.

Inuyasha almost choked on his soup. He glared at the monk but said nothing recognisable as speech, primarily because he was busy trying to get a piece of tofu out of his windpipe.

"Did you run into Sesshomaru while you were out there?" Shippo asked innocently, re-emerging from under Sango's arm.

It was hard for Miroku to tell if Inuyasha was colouring at the mention of his brother's name, for he was still red from coughing his food back out of his air passage.

"No," the half-demon said, spitting the treacherous bit of beancurd back into his bowl. "Run into him? Oh, no. There's no way I could _run into him_ at this time."

Shippo was mystified by his sarcastic emphasis on those words, but put it aside and pressed on: "He's back in the forest again – I can sense him there. He left when you left, and he's back now that you're back – so why haven't you run into him?"

"I have no idea. Why don't you go and ask him?" the now-human hanyou gave the kitsune a toothy grin. "Cos I would like to know too." He spoke those last few words a little louder, as if Sesshomaru's ears would be able to pick them up.

Shippo blanched. "Uh, no thanks. Just because he didn't squish me the last time I went looking for him doesn't mean I have to push my luck again."

Reminded of how his little friend had risked his life and overcome his own fears to help save him from the sorcerer and Kinrin, Inuyasha regretted cuffing him earlier, softened and decided to communicate in a less obscure fashion. He said to him: "He's been around. I've sensed his presence a lot. But I haven't seen him at all."

"Why haven't you seen him, Inuyasha?" Rin asked. "Sesshomaru-sama was really worried about you when you were sick. He never worries about anything, but he was worried about you."

"Yeah?" he asked the girl softly. "I guess he was. But I'm well now, and I can look after myself. He knows that, so he doesn't have to hang around me too closely any more."

"Does that mean he left me here with Kaede-sama because he knows I can take care of myself too?" she asked.

"Erm, kid, I think he wanted you to live with Kaede-sama because you _can't_ take care of yourself – and he didn't think he could do a better job than the old lady here. He just wants the best for you."

As the words came out of his mouth, the realisation struck him that Sesshomaru was trying to do what he believed was best for him, in his own peculiar way. At present, he evidently did not think it was ideal for Inuyasha to be with him – whether that was to be temporary or permanent remained to be discovered – and he was keeping physically apart from him to allow him to process his thoughts and feelings more clearly.

"Yeah, he wants to do what's best for you," he murmured to himself as well as to Rin.

"He certainly does," Miroku added, seeming to speak to Rin, but with his eyes fixed on Inuyasha.

"He has a funny way of going about it, though," Inuyasha grumbled.

"It's the intention that matters, isn't it?" Miroku asked.

"The trouble is that it can be damned hard to tell what his intentions are."

"Maybe he too finds it hard to tell what others really need and want," the monk suggested.

"Why the hell does it have to be so bloody hard to understand someone else?" Inuyasha asked in frustration, his voice rising as he set down his empty soup bowl and picked up his bowl of rice, quite forgetting that they were supposed to be talking about Rin's guardianship arrangements. "Why can't we all be more transparent?"

"Ah, nothing worth having is easy to obtain," Miroku intoned sagely.

By this time, Rin and Shippo were thoroughly perplexed while Kaede was having her suspicions about the brothers confirmed, and Sango was trying to stifle her giggles with her chopsticks.

"So…" the baffled Rin began. "What _are_ Sesshomaru-sama's intentions?"

Inuyasha gave her a piece of meat out of his own bowl and said to her: "_That_, kid, is the question."

"Stop confusing the child," Kaede implored. "This topic of conversation has nearly moved on to a point where it is almost unfit for the children's ears."

"_I'm_ confusing the child? Well, somebody tell _him_ to stop confusing _me_ first!" Inuyasha complained, throwing another little tantrum.

"Hmm," Miroku murmured thoughtfully. "Perhaps if one wishes to stop being treated like a child, one should first stop behaving like a child."

"Your point being…?" Inuyasha voice held a note of warning.

"Oh, nothing," the monk said innocently, rolling his eyes. "Nothing at all. More meat, Rin-chan?"


	23. After him I love

Chapter XXIII: _After him I love_

Sesshomaru had started out with the noblest of intentions. He would stay physically away from Inuyasha so he wouldn't be tempted to do anything that would be less than good for his brother, and this would also give Inuyasha the time and space to be sure that he wasn't confusing desire with either gratitude or sympathy.

He would remain far away enough not to be seen or easily reached, but close enough to protect him, because from the second he had saved him from Kinrin, he had been gripped by a powerful urge to never let the boy out of his sight again. Only with some effort had his brain convinced his primal instincts that never letting someone out of sight was highly impractical and would eventually drive them both berserk; he had thus compromised by deciding that he would keep him close enough to reach in seconds if any danger arose that he couldn't handle alone.

Calmness and sense reigned while Inuyasha stayed put in the village following his brief visit to him in the forest during the new moon, but things went a bit funny from the moment he took off to slay the man-eating demon.

First Ryuhi had dropped in, spouting wisdom that was all very fine (and yes, that two-faced, two-headed beast talking out of his two mouths was _still_ in a lot of trouble!); but there were things the old fellow didn't know about the situation, so he refused to take his advice for now.

Ryuhi couldn't conceivably know, for instance, about the fierce internal battle Sesshomaru had fought on the night of the new moon when Inuyasha had crossed the village boundaries to look for him – he couldn't know how he had struggled to control himself when that irresistible creature had nibbled his face, how much willpower it took not to grab him, rip his clothes off him and do to him everything his instincts had been crying out to do for a month. In his human form, unaccompanied by his friends, Inuaysha would not have been able to defend himself in any way at all if he had changed his mind and wanted Sesshomaru to stop – he might not have stopped once he began.

Ryuhi couldn't know that Sesshomaru despised the fact that he understood Kinrin's behaviour better than he would ever admit to anyone. His demon soul, steeped to its core in inborn violence and possessiveness, grasped all too well why the lizard-dragon had wanted to keep a creature as beautiful as Inuyasha subjugated and chained to him like a toy. He comprehended it well, and had had to fight the instinct in himself to do the same, succeeding in controlling his urges only because a stronger, better part of his soul had learnt to love Inuyasha and treasure his freedom.

He had torn Kinrin apart as a beast would eviscerate any rival for its mate, but once that was done, he'd had to sheathe those ferocious drives along with his sword, and yield to his nobler nature before he trusted himself to look into Inuyasha's eyes.

The old dragon couldn't know either that even before he engaged Kinrin in battle, when he saw his brother straddled by the bastard in his den, the sight had unleashed the animal-demon in him, which quarrelled with his warm feeling of relief at finding Inuyasha alive and surged to the fore, screaming at him to claim the boy for his own there and then so that no one else would have him first. It was only the better part of him which had forcibly suppressed those animal demands so that he didn't fly into combat roaring that Inuyasha belonged to him.

This was where the finicky, proud facet of his character reared its arrogant head, declaring that the act of leaping into fights bellowing "He's mine!" was a dreadful cliché, and everything which was sensible and mature about Sesshomaru's brain ought to recoil from it. It also decreed that the words were a formula for disaster, wielded by pairs in love and lust rabbiting on and on: _You're mine! Mine! All mine!_ Incredibly passionate in the heat of the moment it might be, but that sort of possessiveness had a nasty way of culminating in murder or mutual disrespect.

Which was exactly what Sesshomaru wanted to prevent. To begin with, he knew that he didn't own Inuyasha – he couldn't, not when what he loved most about him was his unfettered nature. Even declaring that he belonged to him in the most abstract way imaginable was a pure fallacy, especially when that miko might resurface at any time. He could only, at best, share his brother with her, just the way she had so often lamented that she'd had to share him with the dead miko who was and yet was not the same person as herself.

The half-dressed girl had cast a shadowy presence from the very start over his new relationship with his brother. She had been right here with them in spirit all this time, never leaving Inuyasha's thoughts entirely, and also eating into Sesshomaru's mind, as he compelled his animal nature to accept that she too had a right to his brother's affections. If she reappeared, he understood that he might very well have to bow out, for unlike himself, she had loved his brother from the beginning, flaws and all, demonic nature and humanity in one, and she had the prior claim.

Of course, the animal-demon in Sesshomaru (once it had been beaten into promising not to rend the girl limb from limb if she so much as poked her untidy head out of that well) had then settled into a corner of his better nature to lick its wounds and mutter evilly that it didn't matter – he would live long enough to watch his love rival die a wrinkled old crone, and then he could woo Inuyasha all over again.

The kinder part of him shushed the animal and told it that the young woman had her merits. If she loved his brother as much as he did, they had something good in common, thus she couldn't be too insufferable. What was best for Inuyasha was the most important thing – if she was right for him, so be it. She was human, so what was the longest he would have to wait? Ninety years? He could do that. It would be painful, but he would manage.

That sane voice in his mind could even acknowledge that she was a wholeheartedly courageous thing with a feisty spirit, teamed with immense but untrained power, and perhaps in another life, he might have considered her too as a possible lover instead of a pesky competitor.

Ryuhi surely didn't know about all that, so Sesshomaru chose to mostly ignore his advice for the time being and focus on taming the beast in his soul that ached to pin Inuyasha to the forest floor and possess him in every way he knew how until that delectable creature didn't know which way was up and which was down.

No – that was not to happen. He told himself sternly that Inuyasha was strictly here to be loved and looked after until he saw a way clear for them to be together without him wondering if his brother was well enough to know what he was doing; or without taking them down a path that would lead the hanyou to a place where in the end he would only hate Sesshomaru for treating him like a thing he owned, and detest himself for behaving like one.

But Ryuhi was right on one point: avoiding him would solve nothing. So he thought he would give it a day or two, then go to him and have a grown-up talk about the whole matter. However, as the hours went by, and he quietly observed Inuyasha from unseen spots, he began to appreciate the pleasure of being able to drink in the sight and sound and scent of him without himself being seen, without having to apologise for staring, or look away for sheer decency's sake.

The lad was spectacular to watch in action against the demons he took on – brash, untrained and wild, and frighteningly rash at times; but he was strength and courage personified, a compact bundle of lean muscle and pure bravery wrapped in bright red, swinging his massive Tetsusaiga around as if it weighed nothing. He wished he had looked upon him with these admiring eyes years ago. He might not have fought him so bitterly for their father's Tetsusaiga if he had recognised then as he did now that the sword suited Inuyasha perfectly. Even on the basis of pure aesthetics alone, the hanyou's sturdier build and wild fighting style matched that weapon so much better than his own slender physique and elegant combat moves did.

Inuyasha was also entertaining to look at from afar as he caught fish and rabbits, sparing the larger prey as he could not eat that much meat all by himself, and breathtakingly sure-footed in the trees when he sprang squirrel-like from branch to branch or ran along the bigger tree limbs when it suited him better than travelling on the ground. As he flashed his bare feet in the treetops, Sesshomaru thought for the first time that the boy had the most adorable toes.

And it was both funny and endearing to see him modestly hiding in the bushes when he needed to relieve himself, casting darting looks round in a futile attempt to determine where his brother was concealing himself this time.

So he waited another day, and another, and each day, the one he followed grew more compelling to watch, more amusing to wind up, more engaging to listen to even on those occasions when he was cursing his head off and hollering at the top of his voice in colourful language how much he wanted him, in front of bewildered onlookers.

The beast within himself would not be tamed especially when he watched him sleeping, stretched out more like a cat than a dog along thick branches high up amidst the foliage, never falling out of the tree even if he moved in his dreams. Seeing him expose his neck as he eased into more comfortable positions, arch his back as he turned, part his lips in deepest unconsciousness, or worse, flop over onto his belly with his scrumptious little ass in the air, was all not helping Sesshomaru to keep the damned animal quiet.

He stopped cold at that thought, aghast that he had even _permitted_ the words "scrumptious little ass" to run through his mind – such base ruminations and vulgar vocabulary were most unbecoming of a taiyoukai of his stature.

Or so he told himself, as he scrupulously disguised the vibes of arousal emanating from him, until the next time he found his demon eyes glued to the aforementioned portion of the choice delicacy that was Inuyasha, draped enticingly over yet another tree limb. He was even starting to feel jealous of those trees.

So he was trapped – he couldn't go forward and have that grown-up talk now, not when he was affronted by the indignity of having to suppress several hard-ons a day from just looking at the hanyou and wrestling with that inner beast which wanted to do a hundred unmentionable things to the one he was trying his damnedest to keep as the object of his honourable love; and he couldn't go back, not when stalking him was so addictive, and when he was growing more irrationally convinced by the day that something terrible would happen to Inuyasha if he so much as glanced the other way for a second.

Yes, he had started out with the noblest of intentions, and that batty old Ryuhi had been right after all – he should have faced his brother at once instead of avoiding him.

But it was too late. He was stuck. Good and proper.

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When Inuyasha left the village again after the most recent night of the new moon, Sesshomaru mentally prepared himself to knuckle down to another few days of keeping his voyeuristic, highly unbecoming brand of lust hidden from his brother's senses – and from the senses of every youkai for miles around.

But the moment Inuyasha said goodbye to his friends and struck off in yet another direction – south, this time – Sesshomaru noticed there was something a little different about him. He wasn't prancing wildly through the trees as he normally did, sniffing all over at interesting spots on the ground or wandering haphazardly in the vague direction of one village or another.

He looked purposeful, apparently in search of something far away. That purposefulness lent his bearing and movements a quiet, assured dignity that Sesshomaru found utterly fascinating.

He watched as he moved through the forest in a more or less south-easterly line, until he came upon a small river flowing towards the sea. Inuyasha bent down to take a light sniff at the running water, seemed satisfied with whatever scents he had picked up from it, and began to trek along the banks, following the river upstream.

The boy was ignoring his presence completely, no longer muttering or yelling over his shoulder at him, not making a single concession to his presence whether he was hunting, eating, napping or answering nature's call. This intrigued Sesshomaru. He wondered what his brother was doing, and asked himself again how he was ever to tear his eyes from him when he kept exposing new facets of his character and personality – not to mention his body – that were so delightful to observe from hidden places.

As he continued travelling along the west bank of the river over the next three days, occasionally dipping into it to catch fish or wash his face and hands, the taiyoukai realised where he was going.

He was headed for the spring which Sesshomaru had taken him to twice, the place where everything that was good between them had begun, and where it had almost fallen to pieces – and Sesshomaru was still trying to ascertain that they were no longer dealing with the fragments from the impulsive mistake he had made there, but putting together something stronger, something carefully considered by them both.

Together, yet apart, they wound their way up to the spring, Inuyasha following the scents in the air and from the water that had told him where the stream originated, for he had never gone to or from that spot on foot before, and in fact had been either unconscious or asleep both times his brother had landed there with him.

He arrived at the spring by the afternoon of the third day, stood in the middle of the clearing, and looked around. Apparently satisfied that the place was as he had last remembered it and no one else was around save for himself and his unseen brother at a distance, he stepped over to the edge of the pool, untied the Tetsusaiga and lowered it to the ground, then began to remove his clothes.

Sesshomaru caught his breath to see him disrobing, removing piece after piece of clothing, dropping each article to the flat rock surface by the water, keeping his back to him at all times. And he almost fell over when Inuyasha, standing naked beside the pool, acknowledged his presence for the first time in three days by turning his head to look over his shoulder at where he knew he was hiding, as if to say: _You're looking at me, aren't you? Of course you are. _Having done that, he turned his head away and entered the pool, never glancing Sesshomaru's way again as he cleaned and soaked his body in the warm water.

That subtle yet startlingly erotic signal left his mouth dry and his skin feeling in that instant as if lightning had sparked over it, so he felt all the more that if he were to approach Inuyasha now, he would rush things instead of taking them at the pace the boy required.

He continued to watch as his brother finished his bath in the spring pool and walked out of the water in plain view of him, not bothering to hide himself or hurry as he put his clothes back on.

Properly clothed again, Inuyasha sat down at the edge of the clearing, in the shade of the trees. Sesshomaru knew he was waiting for him to appear, but he hardly trusted himself to show his face. He hardened his heart and kept him waiting on through the late afternoon and the evening, then watched him finally lie down on his side to rest when night fell.

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Inuyasha curled up on the grass, hugging the Tetsusaiga and thinking that now would be a really good time for Sesshomaru to emerge at last, lie down behind him, and put his arms around him where he lay, because he was ever so tired.

He was worn from long days of being jumpy with hope that his brother would make his appearance at any second, and weary of feeling self-conscious about being followed so intently.

He wanted this unsettling phase of their interactions to end, and he couldn't think of any better come-hither signal to Sesshomaru than the hopefully not-too-sleazy striptease he had given him by the water. After that last dinner conversation with Miroku, he had decided that if what his brother needed to see was someone who had grown up, that was what he would give him. What more could he do to convince him that he was ready, that he really wanted him? If he still thought the time wasn't right, or he wasn't good enough for him or whatever, then he really didn't know what else he could try.

He began to drift into sleep from emotional exhaustion rather than physical fatigue, but his eyelids fluttered open at intervals, for he kept hoping that the one he was waiting for would come out at last. He needed to feel his touch, see him, hear his voice, and… really… this would be _such_ a good time to snuggle up against him….

He was drifting off again. He tried to stay awake by attempting to pinpoint through scent and the feel of his youki exactly where Sesshomaru was, without stirring from where he lay, but this place was filled with his scent and aura from his frequent visits, and the longer he remained here, the harder it became to tell where his brother was, or if he was really even in the vicinity any more.

Then he did drift off to sleep at last.

Hours later, he woke with a start as the morning light hit his face, and he held his breath, hoping against hope that Sesshomaru had come to his senses in the night and he would turn to find the taiyoukai next to him, looking at him with the kind of desire he had seen in his eyes in this very spot one-and-a-half months ago.

But no one was beside him. The clearing was empty in the damp morning air, save for himself, and he was cold and alone.


	24. What dreams may come

Chapter XXIV: _What dreams may come_

Sesshomaru watched Inuyasha sit up in the clearing by the spring in the morning light, only to look around and see no one. He sensed his sadness that he had not come to him in the night, and instantly regretted not having ceased his game of stalking and hiding before the sun came up.

The hanyou was now hurt enough to start addressing him out loud again, and sufficiently annoyed to snap: "Fine, if that's the way you want it, carry on – I'm not moping around for you any more."

He rose, picked up his sword, and prepared to leave. At that moment, Sesshomaru caught the scent of his tears, saw his lashes flecked with those salt-filled droplets, and knew for certain that he had carried his self-restraint too far, for too long, to the point where it was wounding Inuyasha. That immediately put to sleep the beast within himself that he had been struggling to control.

So after weeks of keeping out of sight, he finally emerged from hiding and landed softly in the clearing before his brother.

"I'm here," he quietly stated the obvious.

Inuyasha stared, not quite believing what he was seeing, and swallowed a lump in his throat. Sesshomaru expected him to speak, or throw himself into his arms; instead, he walked up to him without a word, set the Tetsusaiga down on the grass without once taking his eyes off him, and looked away from his face only when he started loosening with nimble fingers the ties that held his armour in place.

"What are you doing?" Sesshomaru asked curiously.

"Removing your armour," came the calm, simple reply.

"Why?"

"You do want to hold me, don't you?" Inuyasha asked artlessly, focusing his attention on unknotting the ties that secured the breastplate to the haramaki, and raising a trusting, wide-eyed gaze to his brother when he undid the last knot. "I don't want to be crushed against all this metal."

He stood so close that as he bent his knees to lower the breastplate to the grass and straightened up again, the weave of his fire rat robe brushed Sesshomaru's haramaki and sash in a slow sweep, electrifying the taiyoukai's senses. He then turned his attention to the sash, whose elaborate knot he set about untying too, until the length of coloured silk, the swords it held to Sesshomaru's waist, and the haramaki lay on the grass beside the breastplate.

"Now you can hold me," Inuyasha said, looking into his brother's eyes with heartbreaking openness.

In response, Sesshomaru pulled the hanyou against him, enclosing him in a tight embrace of silk and fur and muscle. Inuyasha finally exhaled the breath he barely realised he had been keeping in as he buried his face in his brother's shoulder and whispered in a voice that threatened to grow thick with tears: "I thought you would never touch me again."

Sesshomaru felt the shiver of emotion run through Inuyasha's body. If he hadn't already been squeezing the breath out of him, he would have drawn him even closer. Instead, he lifted a hand to his hair, memorising all over again the way the back of his head curved into the nape of his neck under the thick silver mane, and whispered back: "Why would you think that?"

"Because you stayed away from me for so long."

"I was there all the time."

"But I couldn't see you or hold you. I missed you."

"And I couldn't keep my distance from you any longer."

"So you _do_ believe now that I want you – that I'm not here out of gratitude or obligation?" Inuyasha murmured into his shoulder, breathing in the warm, familiar scent of his skin beneath the silk.

"I knew that from the moment you went to look for me in the forest behind the village."

"But you refused to touch me that night," Inuyasha said, turning his face to nuzzle Sesshomaru's neck.

"I'm sorry, but I couldn't."

"Was it because of what happened to me? Were you disgusted because Kinrin touched me?" The hanyou drew back his head to look at his brother.

"Of course not," Sesshomaru sighed. "Even if he touched you – or worse – why would I be disgusted with you for something that wasn't your fault?"

The taiyoukai leaned in for a kiss, but Inuyasha had another question: "You didn't think I was too weak to be with you because he'd trapped me?"

"No!" Sesshomaru exclaimed, trying to remain patient despite the interrupted attempt to lock lips with the lad in his arms. "You are not weak. How could you have fought that magic when even I needed your monk friend's help to neutralise the sorcerer?"

Inuyasha was mystified. "Then it was the well, right? You thought I jumped in – you thought I chose to be with Kagome and leave you behind?"

"Where did you get that idea?" he asked, almost irritably, the miko being the last thing he wanted to bring up now.

"Then what was all that about us not being ready to talk? Why did you keep away from me?"

"I kept away from you at first because you weren't well enough to talk, but I stayed away after that because I wasn't ready," he confessed.

"_You_ weren't ready? For what?"

"I wasn't ready to be with you in a way that would be good for you. I didn't want to hurt you."

"Now I have no idea what you're talking about. Why would you hurt me by being with me?" By this time, he had pulled his entire upper body away from Sesshomaru to stare into his face in bewilderment.

"When you came to me in the forest, you were so defenceless, I was afraid to touch you," Sesshomaru told him. "Didn't you know that at the caves, when Kinrin asked if you were mine, it took every ounce of self-control I had not to say that you were? I wanted to claim you, leave no one in doubt that you belonged to me – and I couldn't do that. After all I had said about wanting you to be independent, my instincts were urging me to do to you emotionally what Kinrin tried to do to you physically, and that was unacceptable."

Speaking very slowly, and with an air of disbelief, Inuyasha asked: "So – all this time – this whole month – you've been staying away from me because _you_ weren't ready, not because you thought _I_ wasn't?"

"Mostly, yes."

"It was because _you_ were trying to get _yourself_ into a non-possessive state of mind?" The pieces were falling into place for him, and he saw it quite clearly.

"Yes."

The silence that followed was so thick that if Sesshomaru had run a claw along its edge, he might have seen the air split.

What did split, however, was the skin over his left jaw as Inuyasha drove his fist into his face so hard that Sesshomaru reeled back, while the hanyou pushed himself four feet away from him.

"Inuyasha!" Sesshomaru roared, touching his face and seeing his fingers come away smeared with blood. "What the _hell_ was that for?"

"You jerk!" Inuyasha yelled, swiftly descending into what his brother could see at once was going to turn into another major, hopping-mad rant. "You kept me waiting one whole month – a _whole_ _month_ – just because you… bastard... couldn't manage your own fucking emotions? Did it ever occur to you to ask me how I felt about it? Did you think that maybe you could have consulted me _once_? Oh no, you had to go solve the problem all by your grand and glorious self and leave me thinking for _one whole month_ that you didn't want me any more! You're such a stuck-up prick you couldn't even check with me about what _I_ wanted! If you wanted to make me yours you should have just done so as I would have given you my fucking damn _permission_ to do so, so there would have been _no problem_ with it! Don't you know the bloody difference between taking someone who doesn't want you and taking someone who _does_?"

"Are you done yet?" Sesshomaru rumbled out his low-voiced reply, eyes blazing, blood crawling along his jawline.

"No! I'm not done yet! I can't believe you left me confused and upset for a month and three days AND a whole night without ONCE letting me see you or talk with you – which would have made things clear between us A WHOLE LOT EARLIER – instead of Super Sanctimonious Sesshomaru single-handedly running the show and decreeing that things will only happen when YOU say they will happen and no sooner. I thought this was supposed to be about US, not just YOU!"

"I was trying to do what was best for you!" his brother insisted, struggling to keep his voice and temper down.

"You could have _told_ me! You could have admitted it! And I would have told you that you were fucking _welcome_ to make me yours! One whole month of confusion – damn it, Sesshomaru, you DESERVE that punch I just gave you!"

The taiyoukai glared at him in silence for several seconds before finally growling: "As you're so impatient, it's a good thing you didn't break my jaw, otherwise you'd have to wait a bit longer for this –"

Before Inuyasha could draw breath to utter another word, Sesshomaru closed the distance between them, caught him firmly in his arms and covered his mouth with his own in a crushing kiss. The hanyou gasped – or would have, if his demon sibling's lips weren't locked with his, his tongue demanding ingress. They both tasted blood where Inuyasha's lower lip had split against his teeth from the bruising contact – fair recompense for the injury he had inflicted moments ago, but Sesshomaru made certain that the boy would also taste the heat of his lips and tongue, their burning desire communicating wordlessly to him that this time, the taiyoukai holding him would not take no for an answer.

Inuyasha's eyelids fluttered shut as he yielded to the kiss, the gasp he had instinctively tried to make dissolving into a soft, throaty moan as his hands investigated the muscled lines of Sesshomaru's shoulders and back while his brother explored his mouth, learning the feel of it, discovering its succulent textures, charting the profile of those fangs and teeth that dipped and rose like a mountain range, features he intended to come to know very well through as many years as would be given them from this point forth.

The sweet taste of him was intoxicating, but Sesshomaru reluctantly drew back at last to let Inuyasha breathe, and to look into his face. It pleased him to find the hanyou kissed into silence, cheeks flushed, surprised golden eyes just a little unfocused, yet fixed on him. He raised a hand to those lightly bruised, rosy lips and swept a drop of blood off the corner with a fingertip before smearing it down the side of Inuyasha's neck.

Bending his head to the nearly invisible line he had just traced, he went over it in reverse in a sensuous lick with his tongue from its base to its tip as he gripped Inuyasha's lower back, pulling his hips hard against his own, prompting the lad to tilt his head back and expose his throat.

Sesshomaru felt him shiver with pleasure as he kissed the skin of his neck, which was still tender and creamy after being shielded from the sun all his life by his thick hair, not to mention fifty uninterrupted years of dense shade under the Goshinboku tree. He shuddered with such intensity, the sensations seemingly so new to him, that Sesshomaru guessed no one had ever kissed him there before, in that way.

Continuing to caress the skin over his throat with his lips, he pulled Inuyasha down with him until they were kneeling on the grass, whereupon he tore a hand away from his back and cradled the nape of his neck while his mouth and tongue dipped into the hollow between his collarbones. With the weight of his own body, he pressed the boy onto his back in the grass.

Lifting his head from the triangle of Inuyasha's skin framed by the neckline of his clothing, Sesshomaru looked into his eyes and asked him: "Is this really what you want?"

"You know it is," he answered, colouring again.

"Does it make up for the wait?"

"Not if you don't bloody get on with it," was the reply, although his twitching ears and the deepening blush on his cheeks as he spoke gave away his inexperience and the innate shyness that the gruff words were meant to disguise.

He lowered his eyes and squirmed under Sesshomaru to straighten his legs, which had folded under him at the knee as he lay back on the grass. That drew a sharper-than-usual intake of breath from the demon on top when he felt the body beneath him wriggle in a manner that its owner had probably not intended to be exciting to him. The boy was so unschooled in these ways, and Sesshomaru felt very much like a cradle robber, though not to the extent of quelling his desire to teach him what was to come.

To call Inuyasha's attention to the effects of his squirming, Sesshomaru gently at first, then with increasing pressure, pushed his erection against the hanyou's groin, an act that made him stop writhing and stare, wide-eyed, up at his brother. The intense amber heat of Sesshomaru's gaze embarrassed the lad, yet transfixed him. At the same time, the demon allowed his youki to envelop his companion with the fullness of his arousal unleashed, that which he had concealed while he stalked him. Sensing it now as it washed over and against his own ki made Inuyasha's eyes widen further.

Having got his attention, Sesshomaru ran his hand slowly down the front of the fire rat robe, easily unknotting the suikan's ties. Inuyasha's breathing grew a little heavier as that pale hand parted the red lapels, smoothly tugged the jacket out of the hakama, then moved on to easily negotiate the underlayers and uncover his chest.

"You really know your way around my clothes," he mumbled nervously.

"It's not the first time I've undressed you," Sesshomaru said matter-of-factly, slipping his hand between the loosened fabric layers and the hanyou's bare skin, stroking him gently down his right side to calm his nerves while, paradoxically, stimulating him further.

"Did you want me even back then?" his question held a mixture of curiosity and trepidation.

"Not while cleaning you up, but perhaps I did once you took everything off."

"So that's what did it, huh?"

"Possibly, but that was only part of it. Don't you ever stop talking for long?"

"Depends. If I'm… _mmm_…" he moaned, losing track of what he was saying as Sesshomaru's tongue traced a circle around his left nipple before he drew it into his mouth, sending sensations Inuyasha couldn't ignore tunnelling through his body down to his stomach and groin.

He looked startled as well as aroused, Sesshomaru thought, when he glanced at Inuyasha's face before turning his attention to the other nipple. Perhaps he had only ever heard his uxorious, filthy-minded monk friend speak lovingly of women's breasts, and it had never crossed his own mind that such a thing would feel pleasurable to a male as well as to a female.

Whatever the case might be, Sesshomaru took the opportunity of his being distracted by the novel sensations to slip his body half-off his brother's so that he could start unknotting Inuyasha's hakama ties with his left hand. But when Inuyasha felt his fingers teasing at the knots, he betrayed his first sign of mild panic. He grabbed the ties, preventing them from being further undone, and mumbled hastily: "Sesshomaru – I'm not sure I'm – you know – ready to…"

Sesshomaru removed his hand from the ties, but rested it close by, on the waistband of the fire rat hakama, as he said softly: "You looked perfectly ready to me when you undressed for me yesterday."

Inuyasha actually gulped before answering: "You weren't lying on top of me then. And what about _your_ clothes? Why are you only removing mine?"

With a hint of a smile, Sesshomaru kissed him on the lips, and again on the cheek and forehead just because he could, before saying: "Does my remaining dressed trouble you? Then remove my clothes – any way you please."

He reached down and pulled off his own boots and tabi socks. He also slid a hand inside his upper garments to extract Inuyasha's old undershirt, which he had hidden there, and which he now quickly put aside by the footwear he had shed before his brother could identify it. Then he stood up in his bare feet.

Staring at the taiyoukai towering over him, Inuyasha raised himself on his elbows before getting to his feet as well. Sesshomaru stretched his hands out to slip his brother's already loosened upper garments off his body in one piece and drop them to the ground, before lowering his arms and standing still for the hanyou to undress him.

The fur was the first thing Inuyasha tackled. He unrolled it from Sesshomaru's shoulder, walking right around him to make sure he didn't tangle it up, before laying it carefully on the grass and contemplating his next move.

Having washed the silk in the pool before, he knew the haori was pretty long in the hem – trust Sesshomaru to pack all that fabric around his hips and still _not_ have a fat butt – and realised to his embarrassment that he would have to untie the hakama first to give himself an easier job of pulling the silk out. So that the trouser legs wouldn't be trapped around the ankles, he bent down to unfasten the cords which gathered the hakama at its hems, to open them up. He rose again and reached uncertainly for the silk ties at the waist, normally hidden under the haramaki and obi. He felt Sesshomaru's eyes on him while he worked, but didn't dare raise his own to them as he undid the ties and lowered the hakama to the ground. Sesshomaru stepped lightly out of it, leaving him in his white trouser underlayer – something that ought to have made him self-conscious, but seemed to unnerve only Inuyasha.

This was difficult. In his imaginings of such scenarios between his brother and himself, he had glossed over all this fussy disrobing and only vaguely imagined Sesshomaru making the decisions and doing as he pleased, pinning him against a tree or the ground, ripping his clothes off in seconds and thrusting into him, without having dreamt that he might take his time, allow him to choose what he wanted to do, or that there would be fiddly stages predominated by yards of fabric, between getting kissed and getting penetrated.

With that in mind, he set to work on the haori fastenings and slid the eccentrically long-sleeved garment off his brother's body, followed by the undershirts, before finally untying the hakama underlayer and letting it drop to the grass. Sesshomaru stepped easily out of that too and stood there without a stitch on, snowy-skinned, beautifully muscled, unutterably perfect, and – to Inuyasha's eyes – alarmingly erect and… well, shockingly _big_.

Okay, he hadn't quite pictured that either. Well, he had in a way, but not in the kind of swollen graphic detail as was now visually presented before him. _Oh_ _gods, the girth of that thing_...

Suddenly realising that he had been staring at Sesshomaru's crotch for more seconds than was polite – wait, what was that? The word "polite" surely didn't begin to belong to this situation! – Inuyasha flushed for what felt like the thousandth time since his brother had pushed his tongue into his mouth, and tore his eyes away in time to find the extremely naked Sesshomaru's arms going around his body again, and easing him back down onto the grass.

"Now can I finish undressing you, my little brother?" Sesshomaru asked in a voice that was turning slightly husky.

Inuyasha felt his lungs and diaphragm threatening to launch into a state of hyperventilation, and fought to bring that under control as he nodded wordlessly.

He watched Sesshomaru lean over to loosen the cords that cuffed his hakama legs around his ankles – and, surprisingly, plant a kiss on his toes – before returning to the ties high up on his own waist whose attempted unknotting had caused that little spell of panic earlier. He knew now that he had taken fright like a scared pony mainly because the thought had raced through his mind that that was where Sesshomaru would turn him onto his belly and mount him, and he had shied away.

But his brother was so patient, and had been nothing but gentle after that first blood-drawing kiss which was no more than a consequence of their getting angry with each other. He shouldn't get flustered like that, he told himself. It looked juvenile and stupid… except that he felt very much like succumbing to panic again as his hakama came down, followed by the trouser underlayer, with Sesshomaru practically having to lift his ass for him to get them past his hips, as he was _that_ nervous.

He was as hard as he could get, and the sight of his own erection now embarrassed him, even though he had always been quite happy to stare down at its length and thickness on long-past nights out in the forest alone when he would grab and stroke it himself to relieve his sexual and physical tension. But he felt ashamed now because Sesshomaru's eyes were on him, on it, looking over his naked body with a possessive expression on his face that Inuyasha had never seen his brother direct at him.

Then to his complete astonishment, Sesshomaru elegantly dipped his head and took the length of him into his mouth. In his nights spent around human villages, he had inadvertently seen some women do that to their husbands in their huts; and on occasions when he had been near large monasteries in the deepest darkness, he had also gathered through the noises and smells that some of those monks and acolytes were up to the same with one another – but for some reason, never in his wildest dreams had he thought that Sesshomaru would do that to him. For him.

His initial wide-eyed surprise, head raised to see what his partner was doing in order to believe that it was happening, was lost to waves of fast-growing pleasure as that skilled, hot, wet mouth stroked him rhythmically from the tip, down the shaft, tongue pressed against it to increase the friction and hold it so it would not scrape against his fangs, one hand wrapped around the base to take care of the rest that would not comfortably fit into his mouth.

Inuyasha could no longer hold his head up to watch in disbelief. He believed it well now, and let himself fall back onto the grass, where he gave in to the uncontrollable sensations which made him groan and whimper and want to thrust against Sesshomaru, except that his companion had a hand on his right hip to restrict his movements.

Sesshomaru, by this time crouched on the ground between his legs, nudged his thighs further apart with his body, and when Inuyasha got the message that he shouldn't buck too wildly, moved his left hand from his hip to caress the hanyou's scrotum, a touch which sent a shuddering tremble through the taut young body.

He teased and licked and stroked him until he thought he had both pleasured and tormented the boy quite enough for this first session, and quickened the pace again until the rhythmic attentions of his lips, tongue and the roof of his mouth sent him gradually, deliciously over the edge to explode at last into a back-arching, finger-curling climax, a strained cry as if of pain escaping from him as he threw his head back on its cushion of silver hair.

Sesshomaru swallowed the hot spurts of ejaculate that hit the back of his throat and held him with his mouth and hand until every last involuntary thrust and contraction had passed, before gently releasing him. He reached for his own discarded undershirt and used it to wipe off his saliva from Inuyasha's body and around his own mouth, then stretched out beside the seemingly half-conscious hanyou to gather him into his arms, feeling the boy's short, hot breaths against his body.

He kept Inuyasha tight in his embrace until his breaths slowed and grew steadier, and he felt his eyelashes tickling the skin of his chest, against which his cheek rested. The fluttery sensations told him that the lad had opened his eyes, so he shifted his position to look into his face, which he found sweetly contented and charmingly sleepy. Sesshomaru leaned back in for a kiss, much more tender than their first had been, and Inuyasha's responsiveness told him how much he had liked what his brother had just done.

"That was really, _really_ good," Inuyasha murmured when they drew apart at last.

"I know," Sesshomaru said, frankly, but with a trace of smugness. "Do you want to sleep now?"

He thought the answer would be a nod, and that he would snuggle against his chest again. But Inuyasha shook his head and said: "Not before seeing to you." His hand crept tentatively down Sesshomaru's body and cautiously stroked the erection that had not gone down one iota, and was significantly thicker than his own. "You don't want me to go to sleep without taking care of _that_, do you?"

"And how do you propose to take care of it?" Sesshomaru asked.

"Same way you did?" Inuyasha suggested naively.

"Have you ever done it before? For anyone?"

"Er… no. But it can't be that difficult. I just watched you, didn't I?"

Sesshomaru raised an eyebrow. "You are so completely unschooled," he said softly. "I don't think I should let your mouth anywhere near it. You've ripped off my arm before – the gods only know what else you'll amputate this time."

Inuyasha guffawed, burying his face in Sesshomaru's flat, firmly muscled stomach to stifle his laughter before collecting himself sufficiently to raise his head again, slide his body upwards and rest his chin on his brother's chest so that he could stare up at him with a pleading, puppy-dog look. "I promise to be very, very careful."

"No teeth."

"No teeth."

"Not everything grows back, you know," Sesshomaru warned.

"Oh, you don't know that. You got a brand-new sword out of your new arm – maybe you'll get a brand-new dagger if you regrow your dick?" Inuyasha was dissolving into laughter again as he spoke, and had to hide his face against Sesshomaru's chest once more as his body heaved and shook.

"Seriously – no teeth," Sesshomaru said sternly.

Taking a deep breath to check the laughter that was threatening to turn into compulsive giggling, Inuyasha got himself under control and managed to say: "I promise – no teeth." His voice was steady, but there was still a grin in it.

"Keep your lips over your fangs at all times," Sesshomaru warned.

"Yes, Nii-sama," he answered, teasingly trying out a form of address on Sesshomaru that was new to them both.

He couldn't tell from the look on Sesshomaru's face how he was taking it, but thought the term safe enough. Then he set to work with his mouth, trying to do as he had been done by, but almost certainly giving the taiyoukai a nervous moment or two with the accidental scraping of fangs, teeth getting past the lips that tried to keep them covered, and with the interrupted rhythm of inexperience and near-gagging.

"Sorry," Inuyasha stopped his ministrations for a moment to apologise for yet another slip-up. "So sorry."

This only resulted in Sesshomaru growling at him urgently to stop talking, for he had actually been getting somewhere until he had thought to verbally express his regrets.

With an apologetic grin, Inuyasha flew back to his task and handled it much better than before, until he was able to take pride and pleasure in seeing, hearing and feeling his brother yield his panted breaths and his movements, his moans and his seed, to him. He swallowed, and naturally found the taste strange, but acceptable because it came from Sesshomaru.

Then he crept up beside him to lie on his side and stare at the striking markings of his left cheekbone, whose lines he traced carefully with a finger as he asked, almost timidly: "Did you like that?"

Sesshomaru turned his head towards him and granted him a rare smile. "Yes," he said. "Because it was from you."

"Only because it was from me, and not because it was that good, right?" Inuyasha sighed, chagrined.

Sesshomaru laughed softly and pulled him closer, whispering into one downy ear: "It was perfect in my opinion, and my opinion is all that counts here. You're learning. In any case, I find you perfect – the scent and taste and feel of you, and everything you do, even when you're splitting my face open with your fist."

"I'm sorry about that."

"I deserved it."

"No you didn't. You were trying to do what was best for me, and I didn't control my temper enough to see that. And don't be silly – I'm not perfect – you've said so often enough in the past."

"I was a fool in the past. You are as flawlessly formed as living creatures come, no matter whether you are human or hanyou or a crazed demon, and your forgiving heart is greater than mine can ever be. You are far better than I deserve."

"Stop that," Inuyasha said, blushing, fingering a lock of Sesshomaru's hair which he teased free of the rest flowing behind him. "You'll make me cry. Seriously."

His brother kissed him, caressed his ears and stroked his skin, and Inuyasha lapped up the attention until he noticed that Sesshomaru was getting hard again.

"How often do you…?" he trailed off.

"Ignore it," Sesshomaru advised him. "You don't have to attend to me every time I have an erection. If I expected that you'd have been molested and assailed the whole of this past month."

"Ooh, is _that_ what I do to you?" Inuyasha teased.

"As a matter of fact, it is."

"Oh. So, do you want to, uhm, you know…" his words trailed off again, as he suddenly felt abashed at what he was trying to suggest, although he had been free enough with his language in recent weeks.

"Take you?" Sesshomaru ventured.

"Uh-huh."

"It will hurt you. I don't want to cause you that much pain."

"You could get me ready for it, couldn't you? Miroku's told me before about the monks and their acolytes from some temples, so it's not like I know nothing about it."

"For humans, perhaps that would work. But for us –" here, Sesshomaru held up a hand. "These claws would damage you inside, possibly kill you, no matter how carefully I insert my fingers. Even if I filed them down, they would still be sharp – and full of poison. There's no getting around them."

"Oh."

"So I can't safely prepare you, and it _will_ hurt."

"Well, all right, but I can take it."

"You don't know that, as you've never done it."

"How bad can it be? You stuck your entire arm clean through my belly once – now _that's_ penetration!" he said with a grin. "At least _this_ one shouldn't come out the other end!"

He was dissolving into silent laughter again, till Sesshomaru pinched him hard on his left butt-cheek for cracking one joke too many, and he yelped.

"Ouch! Okay, okay! Sorry – but I'm perfectly serious here – I'm still offering."

Sesshomaru fixed him with his gaze, which had a sobering effect. Inuyasha touched his forehead to his brother's and whispered: "I want to do this. Just tell me what to do."

"Are you sure?"

"Yes."

After a moment of silence, Sesshomaru said softly: "Turn over."

Inuyasha obeyed, flattening his belly against the ground. A shiver ran through him as he felt that powerful body cover his. Sesshomaru pulled the mokomoko over and placed it under Inuyasha's face so that his cheek wouldn't have to touch the grass, and prompted him to lift his hips as he drew his nagajuban beneath him as a clean layer between the ground and his body.

Sesshomaru spread Inuyasha's thighs slightly, lay on top of him for a while with his erection pressed against him, speaking to him and caressing his shoulders and back as his great spill of silver hair fell about them both, saying: "Keep your legs straight, and don't raise your hips too much, so that I won't be able to go in too deep."

Inuyasha nodded, nervous again, and did his best to stay calm when Sesshomaru sat back up, and he saw him spit into his own hand so he could use his saliva as a lubricant. Gentle fingers parted his nether cheeks, then that hard yet silky tip pressed against the entrance to his body, and Inuyasha stiffened involuntarily, gripping the fur that cushioned his face and arms.

"If it's too much for you and you want me to stop, say so and I will stop at once," his brother's voice sounded softly at his back.

"Okay."

Sesshomaru slowly began to enter him, a half-inch at a time, pulling back by millimetres with each advance he made, before going further. Inuyasha gasped, for it _did_ hurt, in a completely different sort of way from a hole through his stomach. It didn't matter that Sesshomaru was as gentle as anyone could wish – it still burned and tore his flesh. Terrified that he would lose control of his bowels, and feeling his entire body seemingly wrapped around that single point of pain, he bit down on the mokomoko as his brother pushed deeper into him.

Securely inside now, Sesshomaru was able to press his chest to Inuyasha's back again, and slip his right arm under him to hold him, hoping to comfort him. "Do you want me to stop?" he asked, his voice strained with the tension of remaining still inside the hot, tight, trembling body beneath him.

"No," Inuyasha managed to force that one word out through his teeth, fearing that if he said more he might actually sob.

"Breathe."

He forced himself to inhale and exhale slowly, and it relaxed his body so that the pain lessened, either that or he was getting used to the feel of a pretty large foreign body shoved up his ass. Okay, that wasn't fair to Sesshomaru – he hadn't _shoved_ – but honestly, "shoved up his ass" was exactly what it felt like.

When he judged that Inuyasha's body had adjusted to his size, Sesshomaru began to thrust, very slowly, but it brought a fresh round of discomfort to his partner, who muffled his soft cries in the fur. He held back until he felt him relax further before moving again, and this time, Inuyasha took it better – either the pain was fading, or the nerve endings around his rear opening were simply shot to pieces.

"Shh… just relax…" Sesshomaru murmured, clutching him firmly. "Don't fight me now… you feel so utterly perfect –" He began thrusting more freely, till he was grunting into Inuyasha's hair and neck, and the hanyou was swept up enough in his passion to briefly forget the pain. He came quickly, gasping Inuyasha's name, not wanting to prolong the discomfort for his little brother, and besides, the boy was so incredibly tight that he couldn't _not_ have come fast if he'd tried.

Inuyasha felt the searing fluid shoot into his body, and felt Sesshomaru carefully withdraw from him. While it pleased him to know that he had managed to do this for him, he quite frankly felt as if he'd been through a round of torture, and couldn't stop himself from muttering "Sorry, I have to… um… _go_" before scrambling to his feet, despite feeling too sore to walk, and running behind a crop of rocks and trees to dig as deep a hole as quickly as he could in the ground and purge from both ends of his body whatever was in his bowels and stomach.

Sesshomaru guiltily heard and smelt the effects of what he had done to his brother. He knew Inuyasha would heal fast, and could recover from far worse than that, but to hurt him so intimately seemed an awful thing to do, and he knew that if he had not brought his animal-demon instincts under control, he might have hurt him much more badly while having far less regard for his pain. He wished to go to him now, but he guessed that he wanted privacy, so he waited until he gathered from the diminishing smell of what came out from his guts that he was done, and had covered up the hole he had dug.

Inuyasha reappeared, but headed straight for the pool to wash his soil-caked claws and soothe his sore body in the warm water. That was when Sesshomaru dared to go to him, hold him and bathe him gently with his own hands from head to toe, until he stopped wincing and the colour returned to his face, signs that his body was healing.

When they were both clean, and Inuyasha was certain that he felt fine again, they left the pool and pulled some of their clothes back on. Although this spot was safe enough thanks to its remote location and the taiyoukai's powerful youki and scent, they were still out in the open, and it made sense to be prepared for anything while they weren't actually going at it hammer and tongs. Sesshomaru had slightly worrying visions of Ryuhi losing his way to some place or other and descending on them as they lay naked in the clearing to ask for directions.

While retrieving the pieces they wanted from the garments they had shed, Inuyasha found his torn old undershirt, folded neatly, which he had not recognised when Sesshomaru put it aside earlier.

"You _kept_ this?" he asked in wonder, unfolding it and holding it up.

"I did."

"You said I should discard it." He gazed at his brother out of his huge, molten-gold eyes.

"But _I_ couldn't bear to."

"You big, sentimental softie… wow… I think you really love me."

"I do."

Inuyasha jumped on Sesshomaru and knocked him onto his back on the grass while he fell on top of him, laughing, but Sesshomaru still managed to catch him, grip him tightly in his arms, flip them over and kiss the breath out of him.

They were wearing only their hakama, but that suited Sesshomaru, because he wanted to hold Inuyasha against his bare skin for a while more, so their upper garments stayed off, and when they were done kissing, Sesshomaru curled himself around his brother as they lay on their sides, pressing his chest to his back, feeling the peaks of Inuyasha's spine pushing gently against his flesh. He pillowed the boy's head on his folded silk haori, rested his own head on his left arm, and slipped his right arm protectively over his companion.

"Can we not do _that_ thing again for a while?" Inuyasha murmured sleepily.

"I did tell you it would hurt."

"I never listen. But I'm glad we did. I felt… I don't know… closer to you somehow."

"You always ask for trouble," Sesshomaru said tenderly, kissing his hair. "In so many different ways."

"I'm stupid that way."

"I intend to make sure that you stay safe from now."

"You can't be with me all the time. You definitely can't follow me around like you have this past month. It would drive us both crazy."

"Agreed. But whenever I am not with you, you must keep yourself safe and well, and close to your friends."

"Aw, come on, you've seen me take care of myself all this while – apart from that recent business with the sorcerer – and that was a one-off."

"I will never let anything like that happen to you again, if I have even the smallest power to prevent it."

"I know," he said, raising Sesshomaru's right hand to his lips and kissing it. "Don't worry. It won't happen again."

They lay there in perfect silence for some time, until Inuyasha asked: "Are you going to tell Rin about us?"

"Eventually. She may be too young to fully understand now. Your friends know, don't they?"

"Miroku and Sango worked it out, and Kaede just found out thanks to a really weird conversation over dinner. Shippo and Kohaku don't know. Or Kagome, of course."

The mention of the miko gave Sesshomaru a sense of foreboding, that his time with Inuyasha would depend on her – on her reappearance or failure to do so, on her acceptance or rejection of them.

Inuyasha seemed to read his mind, for he murmured: "What are we going to do when Kagome comes back?"

His heart felt too full for him to give a calm reply, but he had to, because the girl was someone his lover, his brother, his darling, also cared for immensely, so he quieted his demon soul and said sensibly: "We'll bridge that river when we come to its banks. Until then, stay with me."

"I'm here. I'm with you as long as you want me, or until I die."

_Or until the girl returns,_ Sesshomaru thought to himself.

"I won't live as long as you, you know," Inuyasha went on. "But while I live, I will love you."

"And I will love you as long as I exist, whether you are dead or alive."

"Even if we have another fight and you're furious with me?"

"Even then."

"Even if the demon in me gets out of control and you have to kill me to save me from myself?"

"All the more then. But why are we speaking of these things?"

Indeed, this was not the time to think about the miko, or about death or parting. For this was a perfect moment, when he was at peace, and the one he loved most in this world was in his arms.

Inuyasha turned to kiss him and bestow a gentle smile on him, whispering: "No more talk of such things, then. This is a good day, so let's leave the rest to the gods." He then turned back and nestled against Sesshomaru as he had before.

"Yes, leave the future to arrive in its own time," he murmured to Inuyasha, holding him more tightly and burying his face in his hair. "For now, be with me – just be with me."

He held Inuyasha for the rest of that day, drinking in the scent of his hair and his skin and the vibes of his half-demon ki, no longer caring whether he smelt like him, or their father, or of humanity, but loving it purely because it was the scent of the creature he would give his life for.

Perhaps they would fight tomorrow, or he would do something stupid next year, or one of them would die two hundred years from now, but for today, he only knew this touch and this aura and this tenderness, and it was enough. For today.

He would treasure this time while it lasted and savour it to the fullest, because even for demons whose lives last thousands of years, perfect moments are precious few and far between, and time is short when they are living through them.

- END -

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Author's Notes

This was my first fanfic. I hope that whoever has been reading it has enjoyed at least part of it.

A big thank-you to all the readers who made the effort to faithfully review the story as it developed. If you left reviews while signed in, I should have PM'ed you at least once – but if I accidentally left anyone out, I want to say that I appreciate the time, thought and words that went into everyone's comments, encouragement and constructive criticism. That applies too to the unsigned reviewers I could not PM, some of whom left very detailed and passionate remarks!

Those who followed the story from its start on Oct 10, 2009 know that I was initially undecided about whether or not to keep the relationship between Sesshomaru and Inuyasha platonic. But one thing I knew for certain from the beginning was that I wanted to write a love story. It didn't matter whether the two main characters ended up as lovers or purely brothers, or whether any love that arose would be unrequited or reciprocated – it was always meant to be a love story that would take its time to develop, and be as psychologically realistic as possible. I think that's what I've got here.

As for the chapter titles, I took them from some of my favourite Shakespeare plays, which I'd studied before (I didn't just google "Shakespeare quotes"!), and altered a couple of them to suit the subject – the original line for the title of the first chapter was "Something wicked this way comes" (Macbeth), and the original of what I used for the fourth chapter was "One may smile, and smile, and be a villain" (Hamlet).

It has been exhausting writing at this pace, putting up a new chapter every few days – I need a break, then I think I'll do something short and simple, like a oneshot. I have also spent so much time writing that I have not read as many other fics on this site as I would like – and I want to do more of that!

It appears that disclaimers are mandatory in fanfics, so as a final note, I'd better underline the obvious here, once again: **I don't own Inuyasha (of course!) and make no money or profit from writing this story (naturally!), and Rumiko Takahashi has all the rights to the original manga and anime and the characters in them.**


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